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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22912933">with a love that the winged seraphs of heaven coveted you and me</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplerplease/pseuds/simplerplease'>simplerplease</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Big Gay Love Story, Drug Abuse, Emotional Hurt, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nobody is Dead, Pining, Poor Life Choices, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, also they all cry a lot bc let! the boys! cry!, background kaspbrough, okay actually there are a lot firsts too, underage...everything</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 15:29:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>30,852</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22912933</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplerplease/pseuds/simplerplease</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“I hope my soulmate’s tatt’s a dick,” Richie says with a disgusting grin he knows Stanley fucking hates, instantly earning himself a look of disdain.</p><p>“It would mean they’re gonna die from one, you fucking degenerate,” Stan intones, standing up to throw the apple core in the bin. “Those tattoos are a prophesy. If you have a car, you’ll probably die in an accident. If you have a dick, your soulmate’s probably a perv.” </p><p>____</p><p>Soulmate au, where destined lovers see each other’s destined end in an ink above their hearts. </p><p>Stan and Richie don’t see shit on each other.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>157</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. end up sticking to me somehow</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>translation into <a href="https://ficbook.net/readfic/10390785">русский</a> available by Yellow_Foxy</p>
    </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>idk i’ve never been interested in writing a soulmate au before but i found something terrifyingly captivating in this idea that basically screamed stozier right in my fucking face and i guess id be really disappointed in myself if i didn’t try</p><p>it’s based off of many many gay poems and letters, the major theme of shaky’s sonnets, tyler’s flower boy album and, of course, take me to church by hozier</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span class="s1">10 </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">The sky seems endless. Not a cloud in sight, no bird disturbs the blue. The sun is at its highest, but somewhere behind them, its hot mellow presence glowing on the boys’ exposed skin. Richie can’t properly see without his glasses, but this perfect stillness, this everlasting sheet of carefree, yet deep blue wouldn’t change in the slightest if he were to put them on. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">A gentle wave of southern breeze licks his belly, and Richie shudders. There are still a few lonely droplets of water on his chest and thighs, and the curls at the nape of his neck are still wet. He’s tired after their two hours long swim and hazy after two cheese and turkey sandwiches Stan fed him; there’s a pleasant numbness in his shoulders and satisfied hardness in his stomach. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“You’ll get sick.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">His words remain unanswered. Richie blinks and sits, legs stretched yet a little bent in the knees. The wind follows him with a lick to the curve of his neck and his back, used to the warmth of the ground under his towel. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">Stanley’s looking down at the ground, pink fingers arranging pebbles in three small groups: reddish-pink, purplish-pink and grayish-pink. His curls are still wet, too: their tips, already kissed by July, are lighter than rye in the heat of the morning, but the roots are dark, like wet sand Richie<span class="Apple-converted-space"> was</span> throwing at him constantly when they were in the lake. Richie doesn’t need his glasses to see every single detail of Stanley’s face as they sit so close against each other. He has a couple of almost invisible freckles that pop out every summer on his golden cheeks and sun-kissed shoulders. His eyebrows are dark like his eyes, they remind Richie of the colour of a forest when you look at it through an amber — he used to think Stan sees everything through an amber prism when they were younger. Stanley blinks, and a droplet of water off the tangle of his wet eyelashes falls on the ground. Greenish-blue veins decorate his eyelids — something Richie’s still not used to. Stan told him that his mom had told him that the older you are, the more visible your veins get. Richie wonders if he’ll be thoroughly covered in veins after fourty. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">The wind blows again. They both shudder. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“Imagine dying of cold,” Richie blurts out, and this time Stan rolls his eyes. “No, seriously. You get sick all the time. I bet—“ </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“Shut up, Richie,” Stan bickers, face annoyed. “I’m still wet and my towel is sandy. I’m waiting.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">Richie doesn’t. He grabs his tee shirt and shoves it in Stan’s face, smiling at the other boy’s scowl.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“Wear mine, then change into yours. I won’t mind.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">Richie watches two familiar moles on Stanley’s golden back disappear under his purple tee shirt.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">***</span>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span class="s1">6</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">Richie meets Stan at the playground. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">It’s situated right in front of his house and he’s been hanging out there alone for a while now. He’s friends with all the children there, but the regulars, as he calls them, recently have started to bore him. Sometimes parents from the neighbouring streets bring their kids there, and Richie has never had any problems befriending them, but today he’s accompanied by familiar faces and well-known voices, which is, of course, not that exciting at all. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">The sky has been covered with massive purple clouds the whole morning, but towards the afternoon it has started to open up. There are still clouds above Richie’s head, but they’re all white and ripped up, and soft baby blue glimmers shyly through them. And when Richie irritatedly decides to find another playground somewhere else, because while they were playing pirates his fellow teammate Alby fell and bursted into loud ugly tears, on the other end of their street he spots a small figure of a boy. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">This boy Richie’s seen a couple of times here, but he has never had a chance to meet him, because he always plays with his father. Not often, they come once a week usually, but always together. His father, wearing a funny little hat on his head, always holds the boy’s hand and tells him things his son sucks in greedily. Richie heard him talking about poisonous plants, various kinds of wind, wars between Egyptians and Sumerians Richie’s never heard of, and although it all seemed extremely interesting to Richie too, he couldn’t listen for too long — he’s not a stupid boy, he knows it’s creepy. He doesn’t want to be a creep. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">Today though, the boy is alone. His face is unhealthily pale as he approaches the playground, as if he’s terrified yet braces himself up as much as possible, and his eyes are determined, although his hands are in fists. He looks serious and solemn in his pristine white polo shirt tucked in swampy-green shorts, and if Richie thinks his thin hands and knees are fragile, the boy himself is sure not. He doesn’t look at any of the kids, walking determinedly towards the benches for parents on farther end of the playground, and his blond curls rise and fall in the rhythm of his small quick steps. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">Richie watches the boy as he sits down on one of the benches, seemingly trying to not scandalize a pack of crows, pecking something off the ground. He only sees the back of the boy’s head, his curls match the ochre-ish gray colour of limestone paving underneath his feet. </span>
</p><p> </p><p><span class="s2">Richie’s certain that the boy is not interested in talking to any of the kids, but it doesn’t stop </span> <em><span class="s3">him</span></em> <span class="s2"> from wanting to. If the most exciting thing for today was this boy’s arrival, it says something about the company Richie’s in. It’s not like he thinks the boy will be more fun, he just sits at his bench and probably watches the crows, but at least Richie will be sure he’s not worth his time, too. So he stands up from the sandbox and walks as quietly as he can towards the bench, trying to form a plan. </span></p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">The moment an idea hits him in the head, this mess of a child with the poorest impulse control ever jumps up, throws his hands up in the air, perpendicularly to his body, and flows off with ridiculously obnoxious sounds. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">The birds react immediately. In a moment they’re all gone, croaking and moaning, slicing up the air with their strong black wings, and when Richie stops at the bench, him and the curly boy both watch their dark figures swiftly giving up in size.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">Richie, wearing a huge grin, then looks down at the sitting boy. When he looks back, the smile’s all gone. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">His eyes are big, like two caramelized walnuts, if walnuts were to be caramelized with their shells and all. They’re big, loud and wet, reflecting the clouds above them, two sparkling diamonds in both irises, and although Richie hates it when other kids cry, he can’t help but feel a punch of guilt at the sight of the boy’s quickly pinking cheeks and nose. His lips fall apart, bright and plump like he’s been eating raspberry jam for breakfast, and when he blinks, one fat massive tear escapes his eye, leaving a shiny trace on his chubby rosy cheek. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">For the first time ever, Richie Tozier, six years of age, finds himself at a loss for words. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“Why would you do that,” the boy breaths out, shuts his mouth quickly afterwards, and Richie knows for his lower lip’s trembling, that he’s trying so hard to stay strong. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“I—I’m sorry,” Richie says stupidly, because his head’s a mess. He never wanted to see this boy upset, these pure, naïve eyes that are striking in the most intimate and wrecking way, should have never been watered. Richie can’t find enough strength in him to tell the boy it was just a joke to get his attention. “They’ll come back, you’ll see—“ </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“No they won’t,” the boy says, standing up, his dark eyebrows furrowing the very instance. “Not if you’re still here.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">Richie’s lips fall apart. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“Why’s that?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">He sees that the boy struggles between leaving and staying, but it is impossible to not share if you’ve got the knowledge. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“Crows have excellent memory, they’re resentful towards people who did them harm,” he says as if it’s a quote from an encyclopedia, wiping his cheek with the back of his hand. “They’re also kind to you if you were good to them,” he adds, and Richie spots bread crumbs on the ground in front of the bench. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“Well,” he says, pointing up his chin, “then we should be best friends.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“Why’s that?” the boy wrinkles his nose, and Richie feels a stab of offense he’s never felt before. Everyone loves him. No one’s an exception. Even this little curly man. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“They ain’t gonna kill you, so you’re gonna shield me when they attempt to kill me,” Richie explains, face serious and heart beating quick. There’s no way he’s sleeping with his mirror open anymore. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“I don’t wanna shield you,” the boy says, confident in his words. “Besides, they could always kill you from the behind.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“I’ll fight them and when they’re too much we’ll change sides,” Richie offers again. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“I won’t let you fight any crows!” the boy looks so scandalized it’s almost terrifying. Richie takes a deep breath. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“In that case, you have no choice. You have to be my best friend.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">The kid purses his lips, unsure of his answer. Richie’s stomach is in knots. He still feels really, really guilty. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“Look, I’m sorry for scaring your crows away, I wish I could bring them back, but you said they ain’t gonna. I’m sorry,” Richie tries for the last time. The biggest cloud above them lights up with silver lining. “I have a lot of some black n’ white birds, hangin’ out on my backyard. Wanna see?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">Big hazel eyes light up with curiosity. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“I’m not allowed to leave the playground,” the boy says, but Richie already knows he’s gonna follow him wherever he’ll decide to take the boy to. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“I live here,” Richie points at his house and notices with a great pleasure that a healthy heat starts to blossom on two full chubby cheeks of his new best friend. “Name’s Richie, by the way.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">The boy cautiously looks at him with his piercing eyes once again, as if he’s trying to decide if Richie’s worth knowing his name. When he opens his mouth to speak, Richie feels like a champion. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“I’m Stan.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">***<br/></span>
</p><p> </p><p>11</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“So we’re born with tatts only one person in the world can see, right?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p><span class="s2">“Yeah,” Stanley answers, taking a bite of his apple. They’re sitting at Richie’s back porch, the air too hot and humid it’s impossible to do anything but hide in shadows and wait till the evening. Richie doesn’t give a shit, Stanley always has something to tell him about. His mind, Richie’s concluded long time ago, has no rest, ever. He’s constantly thinking, he’s constantly inspecting, he’s constantly analyzing everything, and sometimes it’s good, because being observant is a generally good character trait, but Stanley also tends to...upset himself. A lot. Way more than other people do. Sometimes Richie thinks his head is too heavy for him, that it’s a burden for Stanley’s gentle frame. He doesn’t know what could possibly happen if one day Stan decides it’s too much for him, but this something terrifies the shit out of Richie. Not because it’s unknown, but because although he doesn’t know what it is, it just </span> <span class="s3"><em>breathes</em></span> <span class="s2"> tragedy and misery. Of both of them. </span></p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“And what if we don’t like them? Can we change them?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“No,” he shrugs and looks at the ground thoughtfully. “I mean, sometimes they change, but very seldom. No one knows how it works. Dad said, there are people who tried to live their lives with others, not their soulmates, but the tattoos wouldn’t appear, even if their marriages were happy and stuff. He said your brain should be really fucked up to change the person you’re supposed to be forever in love with.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“How fucked up?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p><span class="s2">“Dunno. Those people were a mess,” he looks at Richie deadpan, and Richie knows what Stan sees. A fucked up kid, with fucked up hair, teeth, eyes, knees, a scratch on his cheek, a rip on his armpit. He probably has no idea that Richie sees a boy, equally screwed. With an absolutely fucked up brain that commands him to iron his clothes until they’re paper-thin and straight, to brush his curls until no hair sticks out of the dirty-golden locks, to use lip balm fifteen times a day to keep his lips spotless. Richie knows Stan hates every single skin cell of his, he loathes </span> <span class="s3"><em>the idea</em></span> <span class="s2"> of being built of billions of pieces, constructed with different parts rather than having a body perfectly unified. He hates his hair, his lovely curls, dark-blonde, like the roots of ginger Stanley’s mother cuts into her tea, framing his equally cherubic face — they’re not straight like cables and wires above their heads. He hesitates before putting his fucking clothes on after ironing them, Richie’s seen it a hundred times, because Stan knows </span> <span class="s3"><em>he</em> will </span><span class="s2">be the reasons they’re messy and wrinkly. Stanley is the most chaotic and vividly messy person Richie knows, and he wakes up to see himself in the mirror every day. That says a lot about the two of them. </span></p><p> </p><p>“I hope my soulmate’s tatt’s a dick,” Richie says with a disgusting grin he knows Stanley fucking hates. He rolls his eyes immediately.</p><p> </p><p>“It would mean they’re gonna die from it, you fucking degenerate,” Stan intones, standing up to throw the apple core in the bin. “Those tattoos illustrate the way you’ll die. If you have a car, you’ll probably die in an accident. If you have a dick, your soulmate’s probably a perv.”</p><p> </p><p><span class="s2">Richie snickers, although the idea of these tattoos sure is kind of terrifying. He doesn’t know how to feel about this. A part of him is protesting: why should he obey someone’s — nature’s, God’s orders, if he has his own head on his shoulders? Another thing is, nothing guarantees that you’ll find that person, and even if you’ll settle down with someone you don’t mind tolerating for the rest of your life, that part of you will always be lost—no, not found, even. The third thing that is absolutely </span> <span class="s3">wrong</span> <span class="s2"> — what’s the fucking drill with the whole being able to see the death-of-your-dearly-beloved-one tattoo? Like, what the fuck? </span> <span class="s3"><em>What the fuck? </em></span></p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“Rich,” Stan’s voice, almost unnoticeably softened (but Richie’s also observant, only when it comes to certain things), pulls him out of his own ass. He bumps their kneess, and Richie meets his eyes. “It’s odd—“</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“Odd? It’s fucking...fucked up!” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“I know, but like,” he shrugs, “don’t worry, everyone goes through this,” and although he, too, seems worried and uncomfortable, Richie knows Stan tries his best for him. To calm him down. He purses his lips and looks at the sky. It slowly begins melting into peachy-oranges and milkshake-pinks. It’s still hot even in the shadows, the air is still so thick it feels like you can grab a handful or lick it, but it’s not gonna last for long. They will soon need their jackets. The wind often grows solid and vile. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“I dunno, man,” Richie sighs, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. He desperately wants to take a shower, his skin feels sticky, his hair irksome. “Smells like caca to me, ya know.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">Stanley lets out a weak chuckle, and Richie is almost sure he did it to make him feel better. He wonders what his soulmate’s like. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“Wanna take a shower?” Stan asks him, and Richie is not surprised. Not anymore. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“You know I always wanna take a shower with you, Sta—“ </span>
</p><p> </p><p><span class="s2">“And </span> <span class="s3"><em>then</em></span> <span class="s2"> meet for the evening?” he doesn’t miss a beat, face deadpan, pronouncing each word with maybe a little more effort than necessary yet ignoring every single thing Richie’s just said. </span></p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">Richie unceremoniously grabs Stanley’s slim bony wrist with an elegant watch any eleven-years-old boy should absolutely not posses. <em>Any</em> boy, with an exception for Stan. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“At seven-thirty then, at your house.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>***<br/><br/></p><p>
  <span class="s1">12 </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">They’ve been hanging out with Bill and Eddie a lot after Henry Bowers locked the four of them up in maths classroom, but it’s the first time Mrs Kaspbrak let Eddie go to the Quarry with them. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“Wish she could come with us, Eds,” Richie says, getting off his bicycle. “Not like there’s anything I haven’t seen before, but that fine body of hers is always a delight to—“ </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“Shut the fuck up, asshole,” Eddie bickers, like a small ball of fury he is, a quiff of dark chocolate hair constantly cascading right on his left eye, no matter how many times he traces it back with his bitten fingers. Richie laughs and strips off his clothes. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">He waits patiently for Stan to fold his own clothes neatly, going on and on about the first time they jumped off the cliff in water. The first time with Bill was interesting, actually. Richie and Stan, with a glimmer of desperation in their eyes, were doing their best to show him they were pros and the thought of jumping right into shiny turquoise depth doesn’t wrap its cool hand around their guts; and Bill, adorable Bill, with goosebumps all over his thoroughly freckled pale body and wind in straight locks of ginger hair, opening up with golden undertones on burned out tips, was busy doing the same thing. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“It looks way more scary than it actually is, you’ll get used to it, amigo, yet—guys?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">Eddie and Bill, both shirtless, stare at each other’s chests with expressions neither Richie nor Stan have ever seen. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">Richie thinks he might throw up. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">This adamant weight of sudden responsibility doesn’t suit the boys’ yet cherubic features. The terror of learning the end of a beloved one should have never touched their bright eyes, it is unnatural, it’s vile, it’s cruel. Of a friend, of a lover, of a future, of a missing part of yours. Or rather, a fulfilling part. Eddie’s eyes, gently framed with the longest eyelashes, are glimmering weakly, while Bill’s greenish-blue irises fill up with something Richie can’t identify. It reminds him of Stanley’s expression when, walking Richie home, he hears his parents either fighting or laughing maniacally. They always end up having an impromptu sleepover at Stan’s, that’s why Richie often doesn’t really mind his parents’ intoxicated behaviour. Or that time Stanley saw him almost fully leaning out of the third-floor window at school, trying to collect his ridiculous bucket hat from the tree someone threw it on. He yelled at him a lot, that day. He yelled at Richie like no one ever had; and they were ten. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“Oh my God,” Richie mumbles, breathless. “Oh God, Stan, it’s happening.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">“Shut up,” Stan whispers, not looking at him but at the boys, both dumbstruck and a little bit terrified. Their bare chests are no different to theirs at Richie’s point of view, but it’s clear they see things he doesn’t, he can’t possibly detect. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">Bill bends his arm and lets his shaking fingers touch Eddie’s trembling skin, right under his collarbone, right where his heart beats under the skin and bones he runs his thumb over. His eyes are fixed upon his fingertips, and so are Eddie’s, his tragically solemn eyes cautiously inspecting his own body; cautiously, yet blindly. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">Richie doesn’t know who grabbed who’s hand, but his and Stan’s fingers are intertwined. Their palms are sticky, Stanley’s familiar warm skin soft and wet in Richie’s ever cold grip, and suddenly the latter feels how heavy his chest is, how mockingly and wickedly his future sticks out its tongue in front of him, furious and inevitable. Days, weeks, months, maybe years later he’ll be standing in front of someone equally petrified and starstruck, mirroring his own face, and this will be a point of no return. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="s2">And even when a small, guilty smile curves unsurely Bill’s mouth, and Eddie’s parted lips welcome a grin of sublime awe, Richie hears his spine breaking under the morbid weight of fate. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>thank you very much for being interested, it means a lot to me</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. hate to look into those eyes and see an ounce of pain</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hope you’re into homoerotic crying</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">14 </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2">
  <em>september </em>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie sees Stan long before he’s on their street. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Hey sweetcheeks!” he yells at the top of his lungs, cursing puberty when his supposed perfectly boyish high-pitched “cheeks” cracks in the middle. Behind someone’s hedge a dog starts barking, Stanley winces, but then finds Richie with an uncharacteristically puzzled gaze of pretty dark eyes and lets out a breath. And Richie doesn’t know how, yet he knows it’s supposed to be annoyed; but instead, the symmetrical hyperbolic lines of his shoulders indicate...relief. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Under purple twilight his white shirt is blue, his skin is olive green. He’s a pretty silhouette, but as Richie approaches Stan on his skateboard, blurred lines and spots of colour grow into a way more lovely picture. The street lights are not yet on, everything swims dizzily in the evening Derry undertones, neither cool nor warm. Purple is a special colour. It has no orientation, yet it directs everything: purple is the asphalt, purple are the trees, purple are Stanley’s curls. Purplish is the blue of Stanley’s white shirt and purple are the shadows under his neck, cheekbones and nose. Richie senses that something wrong, there’s an odd knit to Stan’s eyebrows, but his spirit cheers up reverently the moment he bumps into Stan’s receding body. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Can you maybe fucking not,” Stanley grumbles into the skin of Richie’s neck, fingers gently clasping around his forearms in order to balance him on the twitching deck. Richie grins widely and unapologetically, one hand curling around Stanley’s waist. “You can’t even stop that thing.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I can,” Richie promises, grin changing into a sly smirk. “Just missed you.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Oh, okay,” Stan says deadpan, pushing him away from his body. “Tell me this when I fall back and break my skull.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“But you’re so good at catching me,” he whines theatrically, although there’s no lie in his words. Stan’s hands are the safest. Although they’re not as big as Richie’s or Bill’s. The fingers are long, but the palm is still small. They’re tenacious though — Richie remembers how he held a bottle of coke, two books and a pen in one hand and still managed to grasp Richie’s bicycle ring bell that fell after he crashed into a tree. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stanley hums and turns to face the empty street. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Penny for your thoughts,” Richie says, trying to make up a scenario of what could’ve possibly gone wrong during the last three hours Stanley’s been tutoring Patty Blum at the library. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Hm?” Stanley says, his eyes clouded with thoughts of desperate interest for Richie as he looks at the end of the road; and his left hand seems to move on autopilot, when he easily finds Richie’s cool fingers and squeezes them lightly to begin walking. Richie turns his skateboard so it’s parallel to the road, and all he has to do now is stand steadily on the deck that moves leisurely under the guidance of one warm hand. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Did anything happen at the library?” Richie asks again, eyes fixed upon the rhythmically moving wrinkles of Stan’s shirt above the waistband of his charcoal-grey trousers. Still, the next moment he can’t help a suddenly remembered joy bringing colour in his cheeks and shine in his eyes. “I mean I know you’re upset you didn’t manage an ollie like one dear friend of yours...” Richie let’s himself brag for a moment, because it’s true: he performed two almost clean ollies while Stan was absent. And although Stan doesn’t give a single fuck about skateboarding, the elegant curve on his lifted eyebrow when he shoots Richie a fond look is <em>enough. </em></span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“And didn’t break a limb? I’m impressed.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Yeah, my man, you see, some of us are busy doing The shit while the rest of y’all sit there in libraries with English Lit peaking out of your—“ </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Patty Blum kissed me.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie’s words are stuck in his throat, at the root of his tongue, as if they suddenly turned into alabaster. The mere monotonous sound of wheels, meeting the rough surface of asphalt, the cacophony of crickets, celebrating the beginning of nighttime, and distant car noises in neighbouring streets — nothing else breaks the silence between them for a couple of long seconds. If Stanley doesn’tkeep tugging Richie’s hand, the other boy wouldn’t move at all. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Wow,” he manages then quietly into the cool September air. “Stan the man gets off a good one.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Because Patty Blum is gorgeous. She’s smart, although she needs help with English Lit, she looks like she inspired girls from French hand-drawn cartes postales, with her neat colour-coordinated clothes and shiny toffee-shaded brown hair, carefully trimmed and styled up. She plays baseball — Stan does too, and he said she hits like every other guy in his team should. Richie doesn’t think about curves of a female body even ten times less than he talks about them, but her body is both full and flat in all the rightest places. Everyone is a little bit in love with her. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">And Richie won’t share this with anyone, especially with his best friend, but he understands Patty Blum. Stanley...is extremely kissable. He looks like a painting, too, but not a carte postale. Richie doesn’t want to imply Stanley looks like a girl, there is nothing feminine about his features, yet when Richie saw those beautiful women in a book about pre-raphaelites, he, of course, caught himself thinking that Stan, if pre-raphaelites had been interested in drawing men, would have been a perfect model. He has everything they depicted: curls of earthy hair, caressing light spotless skin; big intelligent eyes, conceited yet empathetic, with a depth of sorrow to their glimmer; a stubborn curve of brazen red lips and elegance in his often exhausted posture. Richie stared at those ladies for a long time, just like he stares at Stanley alone when he’s at the game, and even an asshole like Henry Bowers would admit (under a gun, probably, and yet) that he’s heavenly pretty. In compare with other boys and girls, he also cleans himself so nice there’s never dirt under his nails, grease at the roots of his hair or grass stains on his clothes. His skin is dry, and while in winter he has to use a shit ton of hydrating stuff for his face, hands and probably his entire body, even in the middle of July his face is clean, no pimples or blackheads in sight. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stanley is a fucking doll. That’s why Richie doesn’t blame Patty Blum for kissing him, of all people. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“It’s gross,” is what Stanley says next, and this time, Richie lets his eyes comically widen in the most seriously stunned expression. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">“Wh—gross? Patty Blum kisses you and you think it’s </span> <em><span class="s3">gross</span></em><span class="s2">? The fuck’s wrong with you!?” </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He shrugs, not turning back to look at Richie. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“God, imagine being so bad at kissing that someone thinks it’s gross for the rest of their lives.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Oh for fuck’s sake, it’s not her. It’s kissing...in general.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Well when I kiss someone, they—“ </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“You’ve never kissed anyone, asshole,” Stanley intones, and Richie freezes for a second. Right. <em>How could he forget</em>. “You’ll probably hate it, too. It’s like licking someone’s wet skin, but it’s all jelly.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Had a lot of experience licking someone’s wet skin?” Richie barks out, and Stan sneers. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“When you’re taking a shower and lick your lips, something like that,” he huffs out, trying to explain. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I don’t know man, I don’t think licking wet skin is gross.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Fuck,” Stan’s shoulders fall down helplessly. “I don’t know how to explain.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I wonder if you’ll think fucking pussy is like—“ </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Do not,” Stanley warns. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“—fucking your wet fist,” Richie finishes triumphantly, and a could cackle escapes his lips when Stanley keeps walking in silence, curls bouncing on the top of his head. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I think I hate you,” he confesses a minute later. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I really think you don’t,” Richie answers him, a cheeky grin never leaving his lips. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">***</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Later at night, Richie lays in his bed, his heartbeat louder than anything else in the world. It’s not peaceful, just like the look his eyes, stuck on one spot at the ceiling above his bed. He’s a wretch for reasons he doesn’t understand, and although Richie is not very familiar with toothy bites of jealousy, it is exactly what bothers him until the sun unsurely begins to warm up the darkness behind his windows. He manages to drift away only to the dizzy half-asleep thought of having a pre-raphaelite painting for his first kisser. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">For now, Richie Tozier is sure he’s jealous either because Stanley Uris had his first kiss before him or because Stanley Uris got that kiss from the one and only Patty Blum. Richie Tozier doesn’t know yet that he’s jealous because he wasn’t the one and only Stanley Uris’ first kiss. </span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">***<br/><br/></span>
</p><p class="p2">
  <em>november </em>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“So it turns out if you’re not into basic oral hygiene,” Richie accepts one more cigarette Bev offers him, continuing to educate his friends on this delightful matter, “you can easily infect your partner’s pussy. Or dick, depends on what you prefer to eat,” he finishes up seriously, lighting up the fag. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">Everyone is politely disgusted. Eddie looks like he might throw up, Bill tragically knits his eyebrows together, Mike tries to pretend he didn’t hear what he’d just heard; Ben’s cheeks are hot, Bev’s nose is scrunched but she’s smirking, and Stan...well, </span> <em><span class="s2">Stan</span></em><span class="s1"><em>.</em> He does look irritated, but it’s because Richie decided to go for another cigarette, and he’s </span> <span class="s2">cold</span><span class="s1">. They’re all standing in front of his house, ready to part ways, and the only reason he still hasn’t fucked right off is that Richie’s spending the afternoon with him. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“What about kissing?” Bev asks, breathing out a cloud of smoke. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Wouldn’t want to kiss that sorta person,” Richie chuckles, readjusting his glasses on the top of his nose. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">“As if anyone would want to kiss </span> <em><span class="s2">you</span></em><span class="s1">,” Eddie snorts, hopping on his bike. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Ew, wrong!” Richie gasps theatrically, his hair wilding up more and more as he moves. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Yeah? Anyone I know?” Eddie’s look is daring. “The only person who fuck-knows-why tolerates your big trashy mouth is Stan, and—“ </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Well unfortunately for <em>him</em>,” Richie cuts him mid-sentence, blood suddenly rushing up to his brain, “Staniel here thinks that kissing is gross.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Mike and Bill chuckle, Richie doesn’t dare to look at Stan right now. He takes the last drag and throws the fag into the bin, grabbing his bike. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“C’mon my man, got a lot of pumpkins to cut.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He’s helping Stanley with some pumpkin dessert today, because his uncle and her family are visiting the Uris’ tomorrow. Actually, Stan’s mom straightforwardly asked him to do it, since Stan is an absolute shit at cooking and Richie’s acquainted with some simple stuff. She’s always been very friendly with Richie, thinking that he’s a good influence on moody and even, at times, sociopathic Stanley. And it’s yet another small step towards Stan’s dad for Richie, who’s always been less enthusiastic about Richie’s company; but as soon as Richie learned to shove that fat stick as far up his ass as possible — basically to control his fucking tongue — when interacting with Donald Uris, their presence around each other becames more and more tolerable to all. Richie now acknowledges that Stan’s dad just has his own methods of showing love and affection, and Stan heard that Mr Uris had once unwillingly admitted to his wife that he’s glad “the love Stan lacks he finds in his friends, especially that Tozier boy”, and it’s truly saying something. At least because now Richie’s “that Tozier boy” and not “that insufferable bratty menace of a child”. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Finally, they wave their goodbyes and head towards the front door, leaving bicycles outside. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Can’t wait for snow,” Richie admits, kicking off his boots. “It’s fucking freezing, with snow out there it’s at least not as icy as it is—“ </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Stanley is on him in seconds, and with a hard push in the chest by two confident palms, Richie’s in the kitchen. Absolutely confused, he stumbles back a little bit until his lower back’s pressed up against a counter, and right when he opens his mouth to object, Stanley grabs a handful of his sweater and yanks him just close enough for their lips to connect in one painful, rough kiss. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">Richie gasps, wincing, but Stan’s other hand is on his waist, steadying him, his hips against Richie’s do, too. Stanley tilts his head a little bit, and with a wet suck of his lips the pain on Richie’s dissolves. The sensation is cool at first, because Stanley’s lips are still pale from cold and his nose is rosy pink, but when he breaths out in Richie’s mouth and traces his lower lip with the tip of his hot tongue, Richie </span> <em><span class="s2">melts</span></em><span class="s1"><em>.</em> He tilts his head a little bit, mirroring Stan’s motions, and lets his tongue lick its way into Stan’s mouth, heart hammering out one thousand beats in a second. One of his hands lays on Stan’s fist, his knuckles solid against Richie’s fingers, yet the skin is soft, and his other palm cups the back of Stan’s head as gently as possible, their lips still moving in unison in long, swift motions, eyes closed, chins shiny and sticky from the excess of drool dribbling down from their inexperienced mouths. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">When their chests ache with a desperate need for air, they part with a wet, loud sound, a string of saliva connecting their lips. Stanley’s red, heated face is still impossibly close to Richie’s, big eyes with dilated pupils running across his face with feverish, disorientated gaze. His lips are swollen, properly abused and puffy, thin nose greedily sucking in the air they’re sharing, and Richie lets himself admire his own work for another few moments, before he can tear his eyes away from Stanley’s mouth. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">“Fucking gross,” Richie hears himself murmuring, and Stanley’s pink tongue shows up to lick his lower lip. </span> <span class="s2">Disgusting. <em>Richie wants to replace it with his own tongue. </em></span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The second they look into each other’s eyes again is quiet, breaths held in exhausted chests, and then they’re kissing again, Richie’s hands grasping his best friend’s sharp hipbones, while Stan’s fingers stop on either side of Richie’s face, thumbs on cheekbones, index fingers pressed against the back of his earlobes. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">They’re both greedy, although Richie instantly lets Stan be in control. They kiss like they’re trying to suck up the air from each other’s lungs, to lick every bit of oxygen off the walls of their throats, connecting their tongues in hot lingering touches. Richie can’t focus on any thought, any particular sensation, he wouldn’t remember his name if he was asked at the second, everything is just too much, too overwhelming, too hard on him. The salty smell of Stan’s skin, the sour taste of his mouth, the deafening sound of their kiss, in which breaths, wet smacking and low dying moans at the back of their throats take place, is the most delirious mix. The counter’s solid wooden surface presses painfully into Richie’s lower back, but the weight of Stan’s body, leaning against his, is worth it. The heat of his skin is the most familiar thing Richie’s ever known, but wouldn’t it be a waste of time to say that right now, everything feels different. Vivacious, pulsating, mind-blowing, fucking </span> <em> <span class="s2">orphic</span><span class="s1">. </span></em></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">And so fragile, that one loud turn of a doorknob fills their hearts with panic so quickly that both boys suddenly have a hard time believing that the kiss has actually happened many, many times, as they disconnect in a ridiculous rush. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Bathroom,” Stan murmurs, pushing Richie into the small room, suddenly chilly and uncomfortable without slender limbs and hearty breaths agains his lips. Richie wonders if Stan feels the same in the kitchen as his mother enters it. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">“Hello, darling—oh my, are you getting sick again? Your face is all puffy,” she coos, and Richie almost screams with joy, because it’s not Stanley’s winter flu — it’s </span><em><span class="s2">him</span><span class="s1">, </span></em><span class="s1">it's </span><em><span class="s1">Richie, </span> <span class="s2">his</span></em> <span class="s1"> lips, </span> <em><span class="s2">his</span> </em><span class="s1"> hands, </span><em> <span class="s2">his</span></em> <span class="s1"> body that left Stan wrecked like this. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">“Yeah,” Stan answers, voice, indeed, hoarse and low. </span> <span class="u"><em><span class="s3">His</span> </em></span><span class="s2"><em> tongue in Stan’s throat</em>. </span> <span class="s1">“Winter,” he probably shrugs. “Richie’s at the bathroom, he spilled water all over himself. Imma get him something to change into.” </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Hi, Mrs Uris!” Richie yells weakly and turns the water on. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">*** </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">A couple of months ago, Stan’s parents bought him a large bed. Richie snickered and joked, but his heart was melting with gratitude, leaking with it. He still comes over a lot and stays the night at least twice a week, eats the Uris’ food and watches TV with them, and no one, Stanley in particular, wanted to hear nothing about him taking the couch in their living room or Stan’s soft blue carpet. Even Mr Uris said it would be rude as Richie had been an annoying yet rather permanent guest in their house since the day he saw his son explaining aggressively to some dark-haired messy boy in hideous glasses that seagulls follow ships because fish is easier to catch as it darts away from the vehicles and not because they’re so dumb they think it’s a contest. They just bought Stan a queen-size, and now, both boys, in pajamas, all cleaned up and full of Mrs Uris’ rice and beans and four pieces of Richie’s pumpkin dessert they manage to steal, are laying comfortably on the top of pigeon-blue sheets. Richie’s leaning on the wall with his maths book pressed against his right thigh, bend in knee, while his stretched left leg, lap in particular, is occupied with a mess of curls, golden in the lights of Stan’s room. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Why would you do that?” Richie’s question is quiet, yet confident in the pleasant humming silence between them. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Because no one else would,” Stan replies without missing a beat, not looking away from his book. His eyes probably didn’t even flinch, proceeding to follow the lines. “And to prove you it’s gross.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“It is,” Richie agrees. “I liked it.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">A couple of minutes pass in silence, secretly neither of them able to read a single word. The voices of each other are an echo, creeping into the core of their empty heads. Richie unsuccessfully tries to blink it away and return to his reading, but then Stan speaks again. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Maybe the problem was really in Patty Blum.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">A smile doesn’t come off Richie’s face until the moment he falls asleep, his back inches away from Stan’s warm chest.</span>
</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">***</span>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em> <span class="s1">january </span> </em>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">On Bill’s fifteenth birthday his parents have left the house for the boy to celebrate in peace, and Mike and Ben managed to bring about twenty bottles of beer. It was great, really, because Bill and Stan set the projector at the huge sitting room so they could watch films all night long, Bill’s mom cooked a lot of food, they had two delicious cakes to cut, everyone was happy. They still are — it’s a little past midnight, the candles have been blown, almost all the beer bottles are empty, and they’re watching Terminator, all stuffed with food. Well, not all of them are watching: Ben is asleep, Bill, too, with his head on Eddie’s chest, Richie’s slowly drifting away as well, occupying Beverly’s lap. Her small fingers are slowly undoing the knots in his hair, steady breathing is lulling Richie to sleep. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The last thing he registers is that someonegently pulls away from his grip a full bottle of beer he’s been holding the whole evening. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Weird, it’s almost full,” Bev’s voice whispers above him. Her breath reeks of beer, and although Richie loves her with his entire being, he can’t help wrinkling his nose a little bit. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“It’s his second or third,” Stan’s voice answers, and Richie, heart aching with gratitude, thinks that Stan might be the best person he’ll ever know. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">None of the Losers know why Richie doesn’t ever drink. Maybe they haven’t even noticed he doesn’t, as he always accepts bottles of beer or that shot of liquor Beverly once brought to the Quarry for everyone to try. If they haven’t, he’s proud of himself: it would mean he successfully managed to hide the fact that he can’t fucking stand booze and would rather swallow his own tongue than a sip of any alcoholic beverage. To hide it and, eventually, avoid the questions. Because, yet again, he would rather swallow his own fucking tongue than explain all the reasons why he doesn’t want any of the Losers know. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Except, of course, Stan. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan knows Richie on a good day and on a bad day. He knows why he used to be so happy when his mother of his father would walk him to kindergarten or pick him up after school. Why big black plastic bags Richie throws in bins on his way to meet Stan would clink and chatter. Why Richie would rather take extra classes or fuck off somewhere in the streets than go home. Why he’s clingy, why he needs to be held more than the others, why he loves kissing his friends hello and goodbye, putting his head on his shoulder or encourage anyone if they need someone to lay on. He never asks, he never presses. He worries for Richie a lot, and Richie both loves and hates it. He would tug away, like a string, every inch of sadness and worry in Stan’s big, warm heart, yet his own heart feels like a star, a supernova, ready to explode and suck in their whole galaxy, when Stanley knits his brows together and asks if he’s okay. He never wants to know what happened, he only wonders if Richie’s fine. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">And Richie never lies when he says he is, because the moment he exposes his face to these golden lights of affection, lets them swallow him up with this brutal, honest love, nothing compares. Nothing could possibly overshadow the strength of his emotions these moments. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">***</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He wakes up not much time later, and it is still dark outside. Yet, the projector is still on, screen grey and blank, illuminating his friends sleeping soundly all over the room. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie stands up carefully, not willing to wake Beverly up. His body’s unpleasantly stiff from the odd position he’s spent the last hours in, and it’s hot in the room with a bunch of semi-drunk children. Richie decides to find his jacket and take a breath of fresh air. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He discovers that Ben is asleep on it and steals Bill’s, although it looks a bit colder than his. Borrows Bev’s pack of cigarettes and her lighter and walks towards the back porch. It’s so quiet in the house it’s almost uncomfortable. He finds the door knob and pushes the door open. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Ow.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">“Mother—</span> <em><span class="s3">fuck</span></em><span class="s2">,” Richie winces. “You scared the shit out of me, my man.” </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“You hit me with the door, we’re even,” Stanley replies, as Richie steps forward, looking at the back of Stan’s head. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I’m sorry, thought everyone was asleep,” Richie says and sits next to him, the sides of their bodies now fully pressed against each other. There’s a plate on Stan's knees with a massive piece of Bill’s chocolate cake, a little bit bitten on one side. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie smiles. Not everyone gets to know this, but Stanley secretly has the sweetest tooth. He’s as bad as Richie is, and Richie’s diet sometimes consists of chocolate bars, twizzlers and skittles only. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Couldn’t sleep, was too hot,” Stan says, digging his fork in the cake. He tears off a forkful and moves his hand towards Richie’s mouth, wordlessly. The angle is really awkward. Richie opens his mouth and takes the fork in, his teeth clattering on cool metal. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“It’s better than the strawberry-banana one,” Richie says, still mouthful of dark rich chocolate mousse. Stan nods, taking a bite himself. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">As they chew in silence, Richie pulls out a cigarette. The click of Bev’s lighter is loud in the endless serenity of the night, and the smoke Richie exhales is light-grey in the darkness. The night is not windy, everything seems and feels frozen — stars, cars, houses, nightlights. Their breaths are vivid, their bodies against each other solid. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan offers him another bite of cake and Richie swallows it, standing up. He doesn’t hold back a laugh at the sight of Stan’s face that moment — scandalized in the loveliest, most adorable way. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Just don’t want the smoke to get on you, not going anywhere,” he chuckles, taking the same position but to Stan’s right. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stanley rolls those pretty eyes of his. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“As if I give a shit.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Thought you hated it when I smoke.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">“I hate </span> <em><span class="s3">waiting</span></em> <span class="s2"> for you when you smoke,” Stan corrects and feeds him another bite. The angle’s better this way. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I can bring another cake if you wanna,” Richie says, looking at him. Stan’s not looking back, something in the distance holds his gaze. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“If we finish this one and I still want more, I’ll make you, thanks.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie’s laugh is quiet and tender, and transparent clouds of his warm breath escape his lips in a broken rhythm. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Bossy,” he murmurs, exhaling once again. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan doesn’t answer. His breathing is too calm to be healthy, and Richie stares at his face, trying to understand what’s going on. The slight curve of his nose is pointing down, his eyelashes are a smoothline that almost kisses his rosy cheek. There’s a crease on his forehead, although Stanley rarely ever wears them even in moments of desperation and melancholy. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Stan?” Richie tries, and gets a look of forced stability in return. “Are you upsetting yourself again?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“No,” Stanley lies right into his face, his eyes serene and nose slightly pointed up. Richie wants to bite its sharp tip. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie blinks and shifts the plate from Stanley’s lap on the floor behind them, then gently squeezes Stanley’s hands in his cold fingers. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">“Sometimes I forget about the whole soulmate thing,” Stan says, looking at Richie. “I’m so used to Bill and Eddie, </span> <em><span class="s3">they’re</span></em> <span class="s2"> so used to each other, it feels natural. Not forced and all,” he swallows, and looks down, gaze lingering somewhere on Richie’s shoulder. “But then there’s Ben, and I know we’re fourteen and it’s all puppy love, but he’s so fucking gone, Rich. He looks at Bev and—“ Richie’s heart sinks to his feet, when Stan almost hiccups. “I feel for him. I’ve never been in love, thank God I haven’t, but I’m scared,” his voice barely a whisper, but for Richie, it’s louder than thunder in a quiet autumn morning. “I don’t want to fall for someone who’s not meant for me.” </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan shakes his head, smiling sardonically, and it’s a disgusting, mocking curve on his lips Richie doesn’t ever want to see. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“It’s not fair. It’s just...not.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie knows he’s crying when a dull wave of wind blows out of nowhere, and a warm wet trace on his left cheek bites into his skin. Stan sees it too, and suddenly Richie feels awful.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Fuck, I’m sorry,” he breaths out, letting go of Stan’s hand and quickly wiping away the evidence of his selfishness. “It’s your moment, and I—“ </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Richie,” Stan says weakly and stands up a little bit, only to sit down again, but right in Richie’s lap this time. He wraps one of his hands around Richie’s neck, the other one cups his face gently. The world immediately turns different — warmer, smelling like salt, forest-green herbs, chocolate, laundry detergent; and astonishingly real — vivid, with those eyes, illuminated with the dim lights of the porch, in which restless oceans of October leaves are crunching loudly under Richie’s feet, and it’s raining, and smells like autumn — like rot, like cold wet soil, like abandoned, enchanted sleep. Pale delicate skin is almost blue, the apples of Stanley’s cheeks alone are smeared with rosy echoes of blush. There’s a wrinkle right in the middle of his upper lip, and two moles on his jaw, right next to his ear. “I know you hate this too,” he says, and his breath is rich hot chocolate on a lonely November night. “Please don’t think you can’t be upset when I am.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“What's the point then,” there’s a tremble in Richie’s voice, and he hates it wildly. “I should be comforting you, and I’m crying instead,” he chuckles wetly, and Stan mirrors the motion. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“That’s exactly the point. Saying it’s gonna be fine is pointless, saying we’ll sort things out is bullshit. Because we won’t,” he blinks, and his tears are not wet paths on his cheeks but two dark spots on Richie’s sleeve. “I’d rather we hold each other through this than be alone, even if we’re both...” he pauses, and the next moment Richie’s glasses are gone, and there’s a warm hand on his cheek, wiping yet another tear away. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Neither of them is sure who’s the first one to lean in, but soon dry lips are on equally dry lips, Richie’s palms are on Stan’s waist under his coat, wet exhales all swallowed up, heart tries to break the bones against another heart, and mouths endlessly kissing, kissing, kissing. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>thank god we don’t live in a soulmate universe i’d literally die tbh</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. i never fell in love, i saved those feelings for you</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>this one is a little bit explicit, in case you’re not comfortable with that</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">16 </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2">
  <em>february</em>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The first time they smoke weed is on Saint Valentine’s Day’s Eve. It’s a quiet February evening, and Richie, Bev, Ben, Mike and Stan are in Mike’s grandfather’s barn. It was Beverly who suggested it, and although Mike and Ben were against it at first, teenage curiosity still took over prejudice. When Richie told Stan about this, he cocked his head, looked at Richie, face unreadable, and after a few seconds of silent consideration, shrugged and said he wouldn’t mind trying. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Andy said it’s the best he could get me,” Bev announced, showing them the palm of her hand with two small roll-ups. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Hope he didn’t take you for fool,” Stan intones, and Richie shoots him a quick fond look, while Mike and Ben chuckle. He was just about to say this, but less politely. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Oh come on, Andy’s head over heels for me,” she protests and pulls out her purple lighter. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Well aren’t everyone, miss Marsh,” Richie purrs, earning a smirk. He pointedly ignores looking at Ben. It still hurts sometimes. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Three pizzas they bought are securely wrapped in Richie’s bomber jacket to prevent them from being cold as ice by the time they finish their experiment, and he’s wearing Stanley’s huge grey sweater to stay warm. The only condition that Stanley insisted on is that he’s gonna stay the night at Richie’s, as it is Saturday and his parents won’t probably come home till the early morning. They left a bag with extra clothes in Richie’s bedroom, and Richie promised to wash clothes Stan’s currently wearing at least twice before he collects them. Stan even bought him a bottle of lavender conditioner, just in case. Richie laughed bittersweetly, because not being controlled by his parents is good, but having them care for you so much you do everything to not leave them disappointed is a luxury Richie will never be able to afford. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“You want to smoke a cigarette first to get acquainted?” Beverly asks Stan and Ben, because Mike sometimes joins her and Richie at their smoke breaks after a few bottles of beer. Richie once asked Stan if he wanted to try but he refused. It was maybe two years ago. He doesn’t really remember. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Okay,” Stanley nods, yet seemingly uncomfortable. Richie opens a pack of skittles. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Richie, not now,” Mike sighs. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Mike, I’m hungry,” Richie mimics and shoves a handful of sour candy in his mouth. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“We have plenty of food, don’t worry,” Ben murmurs quietly, accepting Bev’s cigarette. He chokes after a moment, and Richie grins, pulling the fag from his fingers. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Take a drag,” he says, looking at Stan, “pull it out, but make sure to hold the smoke in your mouth. Like, for a second or so,” he explains awkwardly, and Stan nods, curving the corner of his lips. “Then try to inhale it in your lungs.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Andy said we should skip holding it in the mouth and inhale in lungs straight away,” Bev says. “I mean, with weed.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Then what’s the point of smoking this,” Ben smiles, but Stanley’s already taking a drag. Richie doesn’t breathe until he lets out a cloud of blueish smoke and makes a face. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“It burns,” he says, passing the cigarette back to Ben. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Well done, Stanthony,” Richie exclaims, bringing up his hand for a high-five. Stanley looks at him, clearly unimpressed. Mike lets out a laugh. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie’s the first one to light up a joint. He tries to do what Bev told them to, and it feels weirdly...normal. Nothing’s different but the taste. He exhales, and the cloud is a dull grayish-yellow, more transparent. Bev lights up the second one, and Richie passes it to Stan. This time, he coughs and grabs a glass of water beside him. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Shit,” he says weakly, face all scrunched up. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The five of them finish their joints in silence. After a few minutes of waiting, Richie decides to speak up. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Now what?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Bev shrugs. Mike knits his eyebrows together, Ben looks like he’s about to cry. He probably is. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“My feet feel heavy,” Stanley says. “That’s all.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">They all stand up and make a couple of steps in different directions, but everything feels pretty much the same.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Exactly how much time do we need for it to kick in?” Mike asks, sitting back. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Dunno,” Bev answers with a shade of guilt in her voice. “But Andy told me it doesn’t really, the first two or three times. I thought he said that so I come back for more.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Fuck,” Richie groans, plopping back to his seat. They threw some carpets over the haystacks, and it’s more comfortable than it probably sounds. “I thought we’d get high.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Sorry,” Beverly offers him an apologetic smile, and Richie shrugs it off. Stan sits back too, leaning against him like he always does. He’s been tired the whole day, slept bad the night before, he said. “We could try again. Not like we’re paying for it anyway.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“What if we get addicted to it?” Ben asks softly, maybe for the fourth time. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Ben, darling,” Beverly pleads, unwrapping Richie’s jacket and pulling out the first box of pizza. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“No one gets addicted to weed,” Mike nods, taking a slice. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“We’ll just try until we, like, get it,” Richie nods and takes two, offering one to Stan. He shakes his head, mouthing a thank you, and reaches out across Richie’s body for a pack of twizzlers. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Whatcha thinkin’ ‘bout, doll,” Richie says quietly, only for him to hear, when Mike and Bev start talking about the next time. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“We probably stink,” Stan mutters, opening a can of soda. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Wanna take a bath with me?” Richie purrs and puts his head on Stan’s shoulder. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Right now, I wouldn’t mind even this.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Ah, imagine a quiet life in a barn,” Richie murmurs, voice schmaltzy. “We wake up every day, take long showers using water we collected from midnight rains, dry ourselves lying on enormous haystacks, jerk off—“ </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Beep-beep, Richie,” Bev’s amused voice rings in their ears loudly. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Yeah, and a fuck ton of cow shit,” Mike offers, and Richie feels Stan’s chuckle on his curls. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He catches Stanley’s hand halfway to his mouth and guides it towards his instead, taking a bite of a twizzler. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">***</span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">17</span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2"><em>march</em> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">It’s late March when Richie and Stanley do it together, just the two of them. A couple of weeks ago the whole losers’ club shared four joints, but this time, Richie’s parents are off to Santa Monica for whatever business they have there, and after a grand party with Bill’s football team friends, Mike’s and Bev’s girlfriends, Stan’s baseball mates, basically anyone willing, Richie and Stan are left alone. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">As it is spring break, they don’t have to go to school for at least six more days. Stan helps Richie to clean up the house, or more specifically, as he wakes up way before Richie does, he tries to vanish all the bottles and cans so Richie doesn’t have to follow his lifelong routine at least these days </span> <em><span class="s3">and</span></em> <span class="s2"> he also forces the idiot to wash the floors and do the dishes, because Stanley Uris is not a dumb kid — he knows Richie won’t. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">And at five o’clock, a little bit tired from all the fuss, they finally sit down on the couch at the sitting room, a big relieved breath like a period at the end of a sentence — no more complicated motions for today. For a week, actually, and this week they honestly deserved — both boys’ shoulders heavy from midterms and all that you never really get used to. Stan though, Stan’s worse than Richie — he never quit baseball, and every year it is harder to pay enough attention to both sport and school. Especially Stanley’s kind of attention: his need to be the best. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He just doesn’t know he is. Not really. Richie has always seen this: in his eyes, his posture, his manners Stanley has this solid and absolutely adamant confidence in his dominance when it comes to everything — academic success, physical appearance, intelligence; but deep in the middle of his bones he still loathes every single thing about himself. He doesn’t know where it comes from, he doesn’t know where it lies, he doesn’t know what to do, but sometimes Richie sees how eager Stan is to rip himself out of his own skin, to crack his own skull, as if there’s something itchy in his blood, that irritates his delicate spirit, that poisons his tender mind. And like bones, peeking through a starved body, this ugly monster takes over Stan at his most miserable, stressed-out and lonely. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">That’s why his smile is all dimples and joy when Richie pulls out the joints. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Right here? Maybe on the porch?” Stan asks as Richie stretches out his legs. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“It’s still cold out there,” he grimaces and lights up his joint. “I’ll open the windows before going to bed, no worries, Stichard.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Stupid asshole,” Stan intones, taking the lighter in his hand. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Don’t inhale too much, remember?” Richie mutters unsurely, because he told him already. He told this everyone at least twice. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">But Stanley nods, not quite looking at him but at the joint, taking a drag. He’s careful, and only when he exhales an almost-golden cloud of smoke, Richie realizes that the sun’s presence is over for today. These are their last minutes before cool purple and green evening. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">Richie can’t take his eyes off Stan. His whole profile, facing Richie, is in deep blue shadows, reddish and pink undertones on his ears, his neck, his hair’s dirty sandy pools of Morocco. But his other side, the one Richie cannot see, directly meets the burning rays of screaming, pleading, dying sun, not really golden, not really orange, not really fresh juicy apricot on a hot July afternoon, not a young, yet underripe peach you bite by mistake. And it doesn’t kiss, doesn’t lick, yet it does reach out with its blinding finger to leave a tender glimmering contour on Stanley’s high round forehead, his long nose with the slightest most delicate curve, two asymmetrical sinusoids of his lips, his pointy chin, the long line of his neck. It’s like a silver lining of a cloud, but right now, Richie’s eyes are </span> <em><span class="s3">golden</span></em><span class="s2">. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">When Stanley turns his head and looks at him, the light is a lazy wave and his face is a smooth shore. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">“I think it kicked in,” when he speaks, the waves go away, but slowly, leaving a shiny wet reminiscence, a late friend who eventually catches up, melting away little by little. And then </span> <em><span class="s3">they all</span></em> <span class="s2"> come back. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I think so too,” Richie answers him, smiling ear-to-ear, because although he loves Stan every day and every day he loves him more, right now he feels his love extremely close. Stan takes his last drag, and Richie takes his fag to stand up and press it into an ashtray, along with his. When he turns and plomps back in the couch, body half-turned towards Stan’s, who’s mirroring Richie’s position, they’re grinning like idiots. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Are you feeling alright, Stanny-boy?” Richie asks, licking his lips and squinting his eyes, not intending to hide from the sun. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Yeah. Like...relaxed.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Good. Bev said some people get anxiety attacks.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">“Oh but I </span> <em> <span class="s3">live</span> </em> <span class="s2"> off anxiety attacks,” Stan chuckles, and if half an hour ago it would be bittersweet for both of them, now it’s nothing but a nice, everyday kind of joke. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“The week’s been tough,” Richie nods, brushing a hand through his hair and taking off his glasses. He relaxes into the back of the couch, still not looking away from Stan. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“God, your eyebrows are long,” Stan breathes out, his own eyes stuck a little above Richie’s. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Long?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Yeah. Long and thick,” he nods, reaching up to trace Richie’s right eyebrow with his thumb. Richie almost shudders at the touch, body suddenly frozen. Stan looks down, curving the corner of his lip into a lopsided smirk. “Not even gonna make a know-what-else-is-long-and-thick joke?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">The thing is, Richie wonders what Stan sees at the moment. If he sees how beautiful he is, by the way Richie looks at him, if he knows how much love he brings into one young, yet exhausted heart. If he hears how slow and calm Richie’s heartbeat is, because a heart only beats like this when one feels safe, when one feels </span> <span class="s3"><em>home</em></span><span class="s2">. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <em> <span class="s3">Sometimes Richie wishes he could see Stanley’s heart. To see if he’s already there. </span> </em>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I would,” he murmurs, almost into the skin of Stan’s wrist. “But you’re just...” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“What?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s3"><em>I love you. I love you. Iloveyou.</em> </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Nothing,” his voice’s barely a whisper, barely a brush of tongue between his teeth. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan’s fingers cup the side of Richie’s face, as warm as gentle as they always feel on his skin. Richie leans into the touch shamelessly, greedily. Like a dog, starved for a human touch after years of winter. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">“I want to kiss you,” Stan says, and his voice is low and quiet, like the air around them, still decorated with slowly waltzing whirls of grayish smoke. Richie’s heart stops. Stanley continues. “If we weren’t high, I think I’d still want to kiss you, Richie,” his heavy-lidded stare leaves Richie’s body naked, exposed, </span> <em><span class="s3">begging</span></em><span class="s2">. “You’re so beautiful right now. You’re always so, so beautiful.” </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie feels like he’s a waterfall in a slow motion, in a video with white noise for a sound, but this is finally the second he’s reached the cliff and begins falling. Stan’s hand tenderly tugs him closer, and their lips collide in one sweet, sun-blessed kiss. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">They haven’t done a lot of kissing with each other. Richie’s quite sure he wouldn’t need more than his ten fingers to count each and every time, and although their kisses are seldom joyful, the memories of them Richie knows he worships the most, certainly not like kissing that girl he attempted, miserably, dating when they were fifteen, or another girl, a couple of months later, Bev’s friend that Richie thought was beautiful. They kiss when they know they need it, a sacred geometry that they don’t try to comprehend. Don’t need to. Don’t wish to. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Slowly, Stan lands on the big soft pillow that always occupies the arm of the sofa. Richie’s above him, comfortably situated in between his legs, bodies pressed together chest to chest, and their lips moving against each other in a lazy delightful rhythm, like they can afford spending the rest of their lives like this. Stan’s hand is drawing impressionistic patterns into Richie’s back, and the other one finds its way into Richie’s curls, letting them move leisurely through his fingers as he strokes the back of his head. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The air between them fatally changes when Richie accidentally lets his palm slip on Stanley’s exposed neck. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">An unmissable vibration of a heavy shudder of the body underneath him turns something in Richie’s head. He resists at first, but as Stan’s breath grows harder on his lips, Richie gives up. He breaks their kiss only to press another one against the corner of Stan’s shiny lips, his jawline next, a couple of kisses are left across its defined contour, and when Richie finally reaches the soft skin of his neck, an unmistakably aroused sigh dissolves in the air. Richie stops for a second, feeling his head going numb and cheeks hot, only for Stan to throw his head back as much as possible, giving Richie full access. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Point taken,” Richie murmurs, his lips brushing the soft spot under Stan’s earlobe. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan lets a small breathy laugh leave his mouth before Richie’s is all on his neck, starting to pepper it with warm lingering kisses. He doesn’t go too hard until reaching Stan’s clavicles, and then, swallowing up, Richie decides to try and follow the big tensed vein, connecting the dimple between Stan’s collarbones and ear, with his thoroughly wet fucking tongue. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">The reaction is immediate. Stanley honest to God </span> <em><span class="s3">moans</span></em><span class="s2">, arching his back shamelessly into Richie’s body and bending his knees up in the air. Richie breathes out hotly, clearly not expecting this kind of consequence to his actions, because he’s no different to Stanley — he’s the same seventeen-years old boy, and it shouldn’t be a big deal to pop a boner at the sight of your pliant and absolutely aroused childhood friend under you, just as high as you are. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“F-fuck, R’chee,” Stan gasps, swallowing syllables, and his hand slips under Richie’s t-shirt, fingers digging into the flesh of his side as he proceeds to violate Stan’s neck, at the same time running his hand down from Stanley’s shoulder to his thighs, stopping on them with a firm grip. He shifts a little bit to pay attention to Stan’s lovely, lovely collarbones, and as they are too low for anyone to notice and Stan usually wears shirts and sweaters, Richie doesn’t ask before starting to nibble at them first, then biting the skin gently, then sucking it thoroughly to Stan’s wet, choking noises above his head, making sure to leave raspberry-coloured blossoming marks after he pulls away. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He does. The skin is wet, slick and shiny with saliva, and colour is spreading under it, like off the tip of a brush, freshly dipped in water, all heated pinks and reds that will surely turn in bruised purples and blues in a couple of hours. Richie feels caught up, when he looks up and discovers Stan looking down at him, his cheeks burning, lips bitten, eyes absolutely, absolutely black. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Goddamnit, Stanley,” Richie grunts hoarsely, quickly lifting himself up to capture those lips in yet another kiss, and one would find them really, really pathetic right now, but, swallowing each other’s muffled groans and breaths, they don’t even think about anything but the present moment. They’re both ridiculously hard by now, practically trembling in each other’s arms, Stan’s nails accidentally leaving red marks on the small of Richie’s back, and for him, for an inexperienced motherfucker who had no idea he has a thing for pain, it is the last drop. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Stan,” he pleads, breathing hard and ripped, resting his forehead against Stanley’s, “fuck, I really want to suck your dick.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><em> <span class="s2">“</span> <span class="s3">Shit</span> </em> <span class="s2"><em>,”</em>  Stan cries out, as if his throat has been dry for ten years. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“You gonna let me?” Richie mutters into his cheek, suddenly very aware how sweaty they both are. Some of Stan’s curls are sticking to his hot temple, droplets of sweat Richie feels at the nape of his neck and on his upper lip, smudged but still tickling his heated skin. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Yeah,” Stan nods, then nods again, licking his lips, and with this motion Richie recognizes clear consciousness of the situation. The first nod was pure desire, and with the second one Stan let him know that this is not going to be an intoxicated regret when they sober up. “Please do,” he chuckles, still a little bit breathless, and Richie, with his own smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, leaves a kiss on wet curling locks of dark blonde hair on Stan’s temple. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">As Richie darts away, Stan follows him,tugging at the hem of his shirt, and then they’re both shirtless, dicks still painfully hard and ribs burning with desire. Richie can’t help but curse at the sight of Stan’s bare chest, collarbones, like a flower crown, decorated with bitemarks and hickeys. He pushes Stan back and shifts, undoing his trousers. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Did you really have to wear fucking dress pants when we’re supposed to be home all day?” he mutters impatiently as Stan lifts his hips in an attempt to help. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">“I </span> <em><span class="s3">always</span></em> <span class="s2"> wear dress pants,” Stan, unbelievably, manages to mock. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Well maybe you should fucking not,” Richie mimics back, finally letting his dick out, to the utmost delight of both. He freezes for a second, trying to imprint the picture of Stan, all sweaty and messy, with his pants somewhere in the middle of his wonderful thighs, his gorgeous dick shamelessly out, hard as a rock, hair disheveled and skin pink and sweaty, on the back of his eyeballs to keep it with him forever. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Wouldn’t want to interrupt,” Stan intones then, eyes fond and amused, “but could you please—“ </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Yeah,” Richie shakes his head awkwardly and gets the goddamn pants off him. “Sorry ‘bout that, you’re just too good to be true, darlin’, wanted to make sure I remember every single detail before waking up.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The sudden extra blush on Stan’s already dark cheeks lets Richie know that he knows it’s not a joke. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“For the record,” he says, quieter than before, lowering himself down between Stan’s legs, “despite popular opinion, I have never sucked any cocks,” Stanley lets out a genuine laugh, and Richie smiles too, heart thumping loudly in his chest, “so it might be awkward.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“As if it’s not already,” Stan banters, stomach fluttering the moment Richie wraps one of his hand around his thigh. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Yeah, I mean,” Richie nods, now painfully aware that his face is just an inch away from his best friend’s exposed penis. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">“Rich, you don’t ha—</span> <em> <span class="s3">f-f-fuck</span> </em> <span class="s2">.” </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie wraps his other palm around Stan’s length, wet and throbbing, giving it a few strokes and watching, mesmerized, how leisurely Stanley’s body arches to his touches. He throws his head back, letting out loud and vivid moans, and when Richie carefully guides the tip of his cock into his mouth—God. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He could play him like a violin. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">And as much as Richie would like to come himself, untouched and desperate, like a fucking seventeen years-old virgin he is, the sight of Stan gives him every reason to continue. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He sucks Stan’s head like he would suck an ice pop at the beginning, adjusting to the taste and the size in his mouth. Letting it out, he gives the whole length a couple of experimental licks and then begins fucking his mouth on it again, knowing already he’s not gonna manage to take it all, but relaxing his throat somehow helps it to go deeper, like the encouraging hand that suddenly’s back in his hair. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">God, Richie fucking loves Stan’s hand in his hair. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He also loves the noises he makes, a mix of untranslatable ones and of his name, in a way he could never dream of hearing, coming from Stan’s very mouth. He loves the way his skin feels under Richie’s fingers, as if the blood under it is buzzing with electricity. He loves the pain in his jaw after a few minutes and that it disappears quickly, when he pulls away to take a few breaths. He loves to see how utterly wrecked Stan sounds when he comes back to sucking, saliva dripping down his chin and tears rolling down his cheeks, and how he tries to make him stop the moment he knows he’s gonna come. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie doesn’t. He takes Stan’s head in his mouth once again and, closing his eyes, does his best to go as far as he can, and the next moment, he almost chokes on warm, sticky spunk, directed right into his throat. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Of course it’s hard to swallow everything, and Richie must look fucking disgusting with drool, come, sweat and tears all over his face, but Stan, apparently, doesn’t give a shit. He pulls Richie up by his hair, kissing his dirty mouth with his own taste in it, while his hand actively works on pulling Richie’s dick out of his sweats, and after a couple of strokes, with Stan’s tongue shoved deep inside his thoroughly mutilated throat, Richie comes on Stan’s fingers, his bare trembling stomach and chest, and it is the happiest he’s ever felt — sticky, high and absolutely fucked, with the person he would not just die but live for, all these days, these months and years, chasing this look in golden brown eyes that silently declares love in every possible way. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">Time is nothing but a blurred vision after this. The breaths they end up catching, the tug Richie gives Stan to help him stand up, the shower they take together, not really paying attention to anything but how heavy their heads feel. The way Stan looks at Richie when he tries to leave his room, because the bed is small for both of them and the couch would be just fine for him. The “Get into the bed, asshole, or we’re both sharing the couch.” Neither remembers falling asleep. Yet both remember </span> <em><span class="s3">floating</span></em> <span class="s2"> — in warmth, in comfortable and serene sobriety, in safe vacuum built of each other’s bodies, scents and breaths. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">***</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">It’s five in the morning when Stan walks into the kitchen, Richie has just taken the frying pan with peacefully sizzling asparagus off the oven, now busy grating cheese for it. Four poached eggs are ready, paired up on two plates, and a small pot of coffee is wrapped in towels, Richie’s mug already half-empty. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">At the sight of Stanley, Richie’s face lights up the whole sleeping town. And it’s not because he still wears a soft sleepy look in his hard-lidded eyes that is a little bit disturbed with curious and impressed arch of his eyebrows; neither it is because his hair is freshly brushed and neatly curled, his skin is rosy from hot water, his pajamas look slightly oversized on his delicate frame, yet fitting perfectly, with this dusty pigeon-blue silk that Richie now knows is almost as soft as the skin of his inner thighs. Not even because the collar of the shirt exposes Stan’s collarbones, impressively marked up and abused — in huge aubergine-coloured pools there are specks of fuchsia-pink. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">No. Richie would look like this, utterly conquered and absolutely starstruck, even if Stanley would walk in, wearing a toga sculpted of potato bags, hair greasy and sleazy, face taken over with a sneery gnarl and a gun in his hand he’d press against Richie’s heart. Richie would always adore him. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Good mornen, m’love!” he cheers, soaking up the look of fondness and tenderness Stan’s eyes illuminate. “Hope thee arst hungreh!” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Starving,” Stanley admits, somewhat awkwardly leaning on the counter. “Need help?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie looks at him, eyebrows lifted up, like Stan himself looks at Richie when he says something especially clever. Stan’s cooking skills are still...pretty much non-existent. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“You’re grating cheese,” Stan says, deadpan. “I can’t possibly fuck up this one.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I’m almost done, you can put asparagus in the plates.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">It’s a morning so blissful and quiet that anxiety makes both boys’ blood freeze in their veins. It is very hard to enjoy things, when you constantly expect something to go wrong. Richie almost sees how he drops the pan or breaks the coffee pot, or accidentally spills coffee, cheese or oil right on Stan’s knees; he checks the oven a couple of times, hoping to be discreet about this, but when he notices Stanley’s behavior, he knows he, too, couldn’t be more obvious. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">Stan folds and re-folds the napkins exactly four times. He counts every single asparagus sprout after dividing them in two plates and then puts two sprouts from one plate and places them in another. He washes the cup he takes from the drawer, twice — once using soap and once without it. He sits and tries to wait patiently for Richie to finish, but stands up and sits back a couple of times, because </span> <em><span class="s3">he just doesn’t know what to do with himself</span><span class="s2">.</span></em></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Alright, Stanny,” Richie murmurs, holding the bowl with cheese. “Tell me when it’s enough,” he starts sprinkling the cheese over Stan’s plate. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Enough. Thank you,” Richie fucking hates how small Stan’s voice sounds, but he can’t do anything about it. He has ice cream in his fridge he bought just in case, and he makes a promise to himself that if Stan won’t relax he’ll bake him something nice. Like brownies. They go well with vanilla—</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“God,” Stan mutters, chewing. “This is amazing.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Yeah?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Uh-huh,” he nods, swallowing. “I actually...I love asparagus, but mom hates cooking it, because it never turns out to be soft enough.”</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">Richie...Richie blushes, feeling something big, much stronger and more powerfulthan he’ll ever be, almost bursting in his chest. He looks at Stan looking at him, and they...they both </span> <em><span class="s3">ache</span></em> <span class="s2"> for each other. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>thank you all very much for reading, i say it a lot but i honestly appreciate every single one of you bc i think it’s the first work of mine i care about this deeply</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. i kiss you, you are beautiful</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>points were made, not actions </p><p>(it’s boring)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p3"> </p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">17 </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2"> <em>february </em> </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Remember Bev’s friend, Bryan?” Richie asks Stan, when the two of them are re-organizing Stan’s bookcase. They do this often, when the idea to have his books in a different order eats Stan out, like one eats a boiled egg — leaving nothing but a cracked eggshell. A couple of months ago, they went from chronological order to alphabetical. Now Stan wants them to be colour-coordinated, and not just reds with reds and blues with blues: from a lighter shade to a darker one is an important feature, too. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“The tattoo guy?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Yes, him.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“What about him?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“He liked my doodles,” Richie says, not quite looking at Stan. “Said he wouldn’t mind a protege, because their studio’s getting large.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Protege...as for a tattoo master?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Yeah.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Would you like to try?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I think yes.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan chuckles, and Richie looks at him instantly, lips curving into a smile as well. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">“Then </span> <span class="s3"><em>I</em> </span> <span class="s2">think it’s amazing.”</span></p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie needs a few seconds to tame his melting heart. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Maybe I could save up for uni, you know.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Really?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Yeah. I’d like to. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan looks at him, eyes unreadable. There is no one on the Earth who knows Stan better than Richie does, but even he sometimes fails to read his thoughts. Although they’re often terrifyingly loud. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I’d wait for you, then.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“What,” a weak laugh escapes Richie’s lips, heartbeat speeding up. <em>Get a grip, boy. </em></span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan looks down, fingers proceeding to mess up with books he has in his lap. He blinks more often than he usually does. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“If you’re skipping a year or something, I’d do this, too. I’m younger than you, remember?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Three months is not a thing.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“It’s not the point, I should’ve gone to school later. And I could always tell them I’m not sure about neurobiology. That I need time.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Everyone knows you’re sure about neurobiology.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Goddamnit,” Stan rolls his eyes, still refusing to look up. It’s not an easy confession to make, Richie knows this. He made his just two minutes ago. “Fine, everyone does. Now what? I’m still pretty sure I could talk them into letting me take a gap year.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“And would you want it? Med schools take forever. I might as well skip two years and graduate just—“ </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">“I </span> <span class="s3"><em>would</em>,</span><span class="s2">” Stan snaps, lifting his chin up. “If we’re both going to Florida, I’ll wait.” </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie has no idea how it’s gonna turn out. He doesn’t tend to believe himself, or for the better, but these eyes, almost yellow in the soft white lights of the room, he does. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“So peremptory,” Richie mumbles, pulling out the dumbest grin he can manage professionally so Stan wouldn’t notice how treacherously wet his eyes are. They’re already embarrassingly heart-shaped. “Turns me on.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Everything turns you on,” Stan huffs out, standing up to place another seven books. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">“Everything about </span> <span class="s3"><em>you</em></span><span class="s2">, babe,” Richie’s eyes travel up Stan’s lean bony body, his strong thighs and the elegant curve of his spine, soft lines of his wrists and shoulders. It’s true, at this point, Stan could give him one single look, bossy and firm, and Richie would be hard, but at the same time, looking at paintings and sculptures makes him feel the same way as watching Stanley does. Art feeds his spirit, and Stan’s not just a snack, thank you very much. He’s a whole damn feast. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan shakes his head, putting the last book in his hands on the shelf and smiles defeatedly, not quite believing he does. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“You’re goddamn insufferable,” he says, turning his head to look at Richie, head a little askew. “It’s so fucking...”</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Frustrating? Disgusting? Annoying?” Richie grins wider, licking his lips to continue, but he doesn’t have a chance. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Endearing.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">***</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2"> <em>march </em> </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Just before his eighteenth birthday, Richie’s dad tells him that his aunt, having lost her only daughter a couple of years ago, wants to pay for his education. He tells him not to tell his mother yet and runs his shaky fingers through Richie’s hair, as black and curly as his wife’s. In his eyes, matching Richie’s dark brown irises, there is an apology Richie never gets used to accept.</span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">***</span>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">21 </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">Richie has always been fascinated with the idea of tattoos. Although comparing regular tattoos with their soulmate tattoos would be pathetic, it’s still kind of a fuck-you to the Universe. Richie learns that among the people of their age, there are plenty of rebels who decide to mark up the sacred place above their hearts. Sometimes their tattoos are portraits, names, symbols of people they fell in love with despite not being able to see anything on their chests, sometimes they are words of challenge, sometimes of mourning. Once Richie was asked to do a small ellipse, decorated with colourful birds and flowers, with two empty lines in it, like they usually print on school copybooks for students to write down their names there. When the girl admitted it’s for the same use, Richie almost fell off his chair. He declared his undying love for the girl and her idea, and it ended up with a few dates and hookups, too, but they still parted ways, both interested but not </span> <span class="s3">that</span> <span class="s2"> interested. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Even if it’s not the heart-tattoo, it’s still a protest. People won’t ever learn the idea of Nature’s to mark them up, to put them in pairs like Noah did with every other creature on his ark, but they spit out a big <em>go fuck yourself</em> and proceed to ink themselves, to act like they are mighty, although everyone knows they’re not. Not all the people think like Richie, some of them are over it, some of them feel happy and reassured, some of them don’t give a flying fuck, but Stan does, and Richie doesn’t need anything else. He would be happy with a Cogsworth tattoo in the middle of his forehead and Stan’s hand in his hand forever, than with <em>anything</em> else. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">They’re still sharing the apartment Stan’s parents rented him when they firstarrived, but soon after finding a job in a Floridian tattoo shop, Richie began contributing, too. He doesn’t make a lot of money, but it’s more than three years ago, much more. He can afford saving a little here and there, too, especially in spring, when everyone rushes to the parlour, since tattoos require a certain amount of time to heal before exposing them to the sun is safe. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He’s been saving for quite a time, because this year, on Stanley’s twenty first birthday, Richie finally has a decent fucking present. Since their childhood, Stan’s been very considerate when it comes to birthday gifts. He fixed Richie’s dad’s vinyl record player that had been broken for years, when Richie didn’t want to get a new one because it was his father’s; he gave him a polaroid camera that they both still use, because Richie always takes pictures of everything and Stan has a collection of bird polaroids. Richie’s glasses are Stan’s present, and not because he can’t afford them, but because Stan always knows what would look better on Richie. Oh, and Richie still has those skateboard wheels with small dicks painted all over them that Stanley found fuck knows where for Richie’s fifteenth birthday. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">From the very day when Mr Uris was accidentally driving past their school, saw Richie’s unsuccessful attempt to defend Stan’s honour when Henry Bowers for the umpteenth time had thrown Stan’s kippah away from his head, finally decided that Richie Tozier is, in fact, the best thing that could happen to Stan </span> <span class="s3"><em>and</em></span> <span class="s2"> offered him to join their family in a trip to Mount Desert Island for birdwatching, going places to see birds has become their very own thing. After Mount Desert, they went to some other birding places in Maine, but the best so far Stanley liked Florida’s Everglades National Park. They went there twice. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">So, it wouldn’t be a big surprise for Richie to take Stan birdwatching; but recently Stan’s been talking about the Bosque del Apache national wildlife refuge, in New Mexico, because apparently, a little less than four hundred different species of birds in once place is cool. And although Stanley’s birthday is in the middle of July and birding in the best in winter, Richie still buys two tickets for late November, books them a hotel in San Antonio and draws a little Bleeding Heart dove on the envelope with all the papers, because it’s secretly Stan’s favourite bird. Officially, he loves a shit ton of them, gets really annoyed when someone asks him to choose one, and he also said “Bleeding Hearts are fat and have weird heads”. And yet, Richie just knows he loves everything about them: the intense turquoise, and blue, and purple grays of their feathers, their striped wings, ivory breasts, with that huge beautiful stain of red right below their necks. Their, indeed, weird form, all curves and too-long parts, little heads, big black dots they have for eyes, small beaks, curved downwards. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">It all was exposed when Richie jokingly said that they’re ugly. Stan was...scandalized, dropped that information rather breathily all right on Richie’s poor head, of course, adding that he doesn’t find them particularly beautiful either “and everyone adores them because of the red spot”. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">And one day, Richie will take Stan to Luzon, somewhere in Philippines, to see their entire ugly and weird population, but for now; for now, New Mexico it is. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">It’s an hour till the end of Stan’s twenty first birthday when they come back to their apartment after dinner with Stan’s parents who came to visit, since Stan’s got summer practice and now they both officially can’t go to Derry. Richie closes the door, still feeling a little bit full of food and cake, and Stan’s already in their kitchenette, pouring himself a glass of water. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Rich, I’m gonna take a shower, watch the tea, ‘kay?” he calls, while Richie’s undoing his shoes. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Fine, yeah,” he answers, finally kicking them off and taking the envelope, securely hidden in one of his visual design books. He clears up his throat quietly and takes a breath, walking into the kitchen. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Uh, Stan?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Hmm?” he hums, turning the cooker on. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I, um,” Richie sighs and rolls his eyes, internally slapping himself for being such a stupid fucking bitch. “Shit, happy birthday.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He shoves the envelope in Stan’s hands as he watches Richie, confused, and takes a few steps back. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Oh but you shouldn’t have,” he murmurs, looking at the envelope and then at Richie, a smile spreading on his lips slowly. He crosses the small distance between them and embraces Richie in his hands, immediately melting Richie’s worries away. Stan doesn’t like his birthday, he doesn’t like getting presents and attention he absolutely detests, but it’s Richie, in the end. Richie and Richie’s gift. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie presses the side of his face against Stan’s and buries his nose in his neck. Stan holds him, smiling, although Richie’s now in the least bit taller than him. An inch, maybe less. An inch Stanley hates with his entire heart, though. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Not gonna open it?” Richie mumbles, hoping to skip this moment quickly. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan huffs and lets go of him, nose still scrunched a little. Richie watches him opening the envelope with a light furrow to his brows, then, pulling out the tickets and the hotel reservation, knits them together. Richie holds his breath and he’s quite sure his heart stops beating, too. As Stan looks up, his features break free of the tension. He purses his lips together, looks down again, his eyes quickly running back and forward, and Richie has no idea what to do. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">When Stan finally puts the letter on the counter and looks at Richie again, Richie’s almost positive he’s going to have a heart attack. And when he blinks and Stan’s body crashes into his, preventing his oh so lovely suffocation, and his ribcage’s burning, his throat’s aching, it’s physically hard to be squeezed this tight, too...and yet, he, at last, lets out a breath of relief he’s been craving for days. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">It’s now him holding Stanley by his narrow waist, his frame so slender and elegant Richie jan easily wrap his arms around it. He has to lean back a little, his shoulders shaking in silent laughter, because the way Stan threw his body at him still makes them sway in soft smooth motions, right in the center of their kitchenette slash sitting room, hot summer air from the open windows making them float, the quiet of the night expose them in front of each other completely. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Shouldn’t have,” Stan whispers wetly in Richie’s hair, arms crossed around his neck, his voice sweeter than a child’s, as just as lovely and sincere. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Stan,” Richie shakes his head as much as possible, feelings in his whole body absolutely overwhelming. “Not to be a sap, but I would literally die to make you happy. So just tell me if you want me dead, ya know, it’s never too late.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan gently slaps his forearm and lets out an embarrassing cackle, followed with his chest shaking, pressed tightly against Richie’s. His warm breath gently plays with Richie’s hair, the smell of his skin, salty, sweet and a little sweaty from today’s heat, devours him completely. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">They don’t let go of each other for another few minutes, just inhaling one another’s presence, feeling how close two people can be, trying to memorize every single detail about this moment. Later, Richie unsurely notices they should turn turn the kettle off, and as he does, Stan kisses him, so fiercely and desperately that Richie moans into his lips, eyes wide shut. They hardly make it to the bedroom, where one king size saves them a lot of space and money, and Stan takes Richie apart, slowly but surely, almost making him suffocate for the second time this evening. They fuck in the shower again, having missed each other’s bodies as they, in fact, quite seldom allow themselves to </span> <span class="s3"><em>let go</em></span><span class="s2">; it’s all hands against the wall and hips against hips, this time Stan staining the white tile and as water quickly wipes away his come, Richie gets on his knees to clean up his own mess. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The bed feels like heaven to the boys’ exhausted bodies; yet these same bodies do too feel like heaven — yet to their souls, longing for each other endlessly and infinitely. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. the only heaven i’ll be sent to is when i’m alone with you</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>apparently i’m a sucker for bathroom scenes lol</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">23 </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie’s twenty three, and he’s still not used to the idea that one day Stan will find his soulmate. Funnily enough, he never thinks that he will too, this idea literally never crosses his mind, but one thought of someone else holding Stan’s hand and looking at him like Bill and Eddie look at each other just makes him sick to the core. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He pushes this ugly side of himself as deep inside his own ugly heart as possible, and his heart is not a shallow one, but he fails miserably every time. He knows he’s being selfish, he knows this is wrong, he knows Stan doesn’t belong to him, because even being each other’s soulmate doesn’t make one possess another; and yet, knowing all these things too damn well, Richie can’t help but hope Stan stays with him forever. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">They have never, ever talked about this. Not even once either of them mentioned the thing that’s been going on between them since forever. It’s clear Richie loves Stan with a love that is more than just love and that Stan not even once doubted that he mirrors his feeling ardently; yet both understand that talking about it would ruin them. This unspoken union, fragile and adamant at the same time, they treasure the most, more than the air in their lungs, more than the blood in their veins, more than every thump of the heart; but it’s always inevitably followed with a morbid feeling of tragedy, poisoning them to the middle of their bones. Their love is tainted, they know this. Nothing makes them more miserable than acknowledging it, and nothing makes them happier than forgetting about that permanent cloud above their Heaven when they’re with each other. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">And yet, neither wants to stop. They date other people, both Richie and Stan, they flirt, they kiss, they fuck; but it’s like a job for them, something they don’t really want to do yet need to, only to come back into each other’s arms at the end of the day. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">And yet it’s not always going to be like that. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie knows that one day Stan will come home to tell him he found his soulmate. Thinking about this physically hurts him, it’s never easier, it’s never weaker; it’s more than him and will ever be. Richie knows he is, too, destined for someone out there; but without Stanley, he doesn’t think there is Heaven for him. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He really pities his soulmate, because they won’t get a person — they are destined for a far outcry, not a whole human being. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">These thoughts, traditionally, keep him company one lovely fucking evening, when Stan’s at a date with some guy. They were introduced at the party of them med guys, and Stan only said yes because the guy was kind of handsome. Richie successfully fought an urge to point out that one time when they both were high and Stan told him he was the most beautiful boy he’s ever seen, and asked if he wanted anything particular for dinner. Stan said they’re going to a restaurant, and that is also why Richie’s lying in their sitting room in complete darkness not only miserable as fuck, but also hungry. This would be really funny if it wasn’t so sad. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">After his stomach growls for the umpteenth time, Richie sighs and gets off the sofa, scratching the back of his head and readjusting his glasses. He stares at the shelves in their fridge for three whole minutes, failing to decide what he wants, and finally pours himself a glass of Coke and opens the window to have a smoke. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">Leaning out as far as possible, because no one, even Richie, likes to have their apartment reeking of smoke, he lights up a cigarette and exhales in the warmth of May. It’s a different apartment, slightly bigger now that they can afford it, but still in Florida. Stan yet has a couple of years to finish his degree, and although Richie graduated last year, he never thought of moving anywhere else. He’s been getting job offers in different tattoo parlours all across the US, because he’s become kind of great at it, but what’s the point anyway. Not until—</span> <em><span class="s3">yeah</span></em><span class="s2">. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">And as the unavoidable feeling of tragedy goes back to terrorizing him, Richie hears their home phone calling. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He curses under his breath and throws away his unfinished cigarette, then runs awkwardly towards the phone. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“ ‘lo?” he says hoarsely, clearing his throat right away. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Rich, it’s Stan,” his voice sounds muffled and certainly...uncalm. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Stan? What’s—“</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“The guy’s kinda weird, I’m at the bathroom, could you please—“ </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Where are you?” Richie says firmly, first of all trying to not panic himself. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan repeats the address twice for him to write down and hangs up, Richie already tugging on a jacket.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He runs out of their building, signaling to the yellow taxi cars, and one pulls in immediately. Over the last couple of years, Richie and Stan have both been in this kind of situation — Richie once was really creeped out by one girl who kept trying to undo his pants right in the café, causing him to lock up at the bathroom,and wait for Stan to pick him up; and it’s a common thing for them to call each other, even though they’re not really helpless — just thoroughly weirded out and uncomfortable. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The place turns out to be only a couple of blocks away and Richie spots Stan immediately. He’s not alone in the street — there are two guys in front of him, seemingly chilled and relaxed, but something wicked sparkles in their eyes, and one look at Stan’s cross-handed tensed body is enough to tell there’s a problem. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie shoves a ten into his driver’s hand and rushes out of the taxi, right behind Stan. He swallows his anxiousness and pulls on a grin, wrapping his hand around Stan’s shoulders, causing him to wince, but he relaxes as soon as he realizes who it is. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Hi guys,” Richie cheers, voice all fake and poisonous. “Any problems here?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Just who the fuck are you?” one of the dudes chuckles, yet his eyes are seemingly darker than before. The other man is much taller than the rest of them, all muscular and toned. Richie feels Stan’s hand around his waist. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Why the fuck you care?” Richie bites back, squeezing Stan’s shoulder in what he hopes a reassuring manner.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Don’t you think you’re interrupting us?” the guy sneers, taking a step towards the pair. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">“All </span> <span class="s3"><em>I think</em></span> <span class="s2"> is you’re too dense to fuck off when you’re being asked nicely.” </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Who told you—“ </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Dude, I literally asked you to leave me alone like five times already,” Stan huffs out. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The guy’s lips freeze, parted, and then curve into a cruel smirk. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Well aren’t all good boys into a small foreplay?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Go tell your dad about it,” Richie spits out, his chest shaking in rage. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The first punch comes from the big dude, like, in fact, the rest of them. Richie hears it before feeling the side of his face going completely numb, but Stan’s reaction has always been a fast one: with one eye squinted Richie sees him taking a hold of the guy’s enormous shoulders and kicking him right between his legs, and knowing how strong Stan’s legs are, Richie really, really wouldn’t want to be in the guy’s shoes. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Thinking this, he throws himself onto the first asshole, but after he’s punched again, there’s a couple of other voices around them, and Stan’s familiar warmth replaces quick and painful fists and elbows, and although his nose is bleeding and he’s quite sure he’s deaf now, Richie grins, licking the familiar taste of blood off his lips. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“My man, you alright?” he whispers, hopefully in Stan’s ear, when gentle fingers pull off his glasses. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I’m fine, we’re fine,” he repeats louder, dragging Richie to the left. “Yeah—thank you so much, no, there’s no need, I’m actually a med student—yeah, we’ll just catch a cab, it’s five minutes ride, thanks again! Yeah, just some assholes. No need to call the police, we’re good. Thank you.”</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Always so polite,” Richie murmurs into Stan’s hair, breathing in its flowery scent. He still doesn’t here much, but it’s better than a minute ago. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Well someone has to be,” Stan answers, stopping, and Richie opens his eyes to see one lovely face right in front of him. “Your nose is not broken.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Good,” Richie grins stupidly, licking his lips. “Can I have a cig before going home?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“So you’re not in pain,” Stan intones, although seemingly calmer, creases on his forehead smoothen up. Richie shrugs, pulling out his Marlboro pack, and presses a quick kiss against Stan’s temple, leaving a bright red stain on the smooth olive skin. He tries to wipe away the blood beneath his nose with his sleeve, but Stan catches his wrist halfway. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Don’t, you’ll catch infection.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Still pretty, though?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan rolls his eyes. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“The prettiest, as always.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie chuckles awkwardly, feeling the blood rush to his cheeks. He licks his lips and breathes out. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“What happened?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Our waiter and the manager saw us fighting. Thank God they didn’t want any police involved.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Paperwork,” Richie chuckles and lights up the cigarette. “No, I mean at the dinner. What did the guy do?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">A boy their age abruptly approaches the two of them with what looks like a towel with ice wrapped in it in his hand. Richie nods gratefully, watching Stan who convinces him that they’re really fine. He looks absolutely adorable, all soft eyes, dimples and warm laughs of gratitude and reassurance. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie closes his eyes as Stan presses the towel against his hose and right cheekbone. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Hold it like this.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Tell me what happened.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Nothing serious,” Stan shrugs, yet with a face of disgust. “It was okay at the beginning, but then he asked me about my sexual preferences and mentioned that his favourite porn star happens to look just like me,” Richie frowns at this, wincing. “And then he casually told me about his friend that he watches porn with, said he’d be joining us a little later. I called you, came back, said I was uncomfortable, then the other guy arrived, I took my jacket, walked away, they followed me, and—yeah.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie’s chest feels like the heart caged in it is metallic and his blood is fire. He presses his lips together tight, trying to take deep breaths, and squeezes the towel so tight his knuckles are white. The cigarette is long forgotten, burning off on the ground, and Richie can’t hear shit because of his white rage now; and then, of course, Stan’s careful hands pull the towel away from his face and warm fingers wrap around his neck. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The next moment, Richie’s sighing into Stan’s lips, and it’s the first time they’re kissing in public. Well, not really in public, the street is almost empty, but anything would feel different after years of hiding in their apartment or parents’ houses; deserted plains of birding places were the only places they allowed themselves to share a kiss once or twice. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie closes his eyes and leans into the sweet touch of their mouths, feeling the soft wind of May play with his curls, lick his neck softly. He puts his hand on Stan’s waist, pressing their chests together, leans to the left a little and opens his mouth for Stan to follow his movement. A shudder runs down his spine, when Stan’s hot breath burns and blossoms on his lips and their tongues connect in one swift motion. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">It’s not a long one, after a few moments Stan pulls away, leaving one final peck on the corner of Richie’s mouth, lips bloody, and before he turns towards the road to catch them a car, hand grabbing Richie’s hand, Richie catches a glimpse of his thoroughly red cheeks and sparkling eyes, much brighter than those dull specks of stars above them. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">***</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Stupid,” Stan mumbles, and Richie grins, earning another annoyed groan. “Maybe you will fucking not? I’m trying to fix your ugly stupid face, you absolute imbecile.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">They’re in the bathroom, Richie’s sitting on the toilet, Stan’s standing in between his legs with his face in hands, one knee pressed against the toilet seat. It doesn’t look particularly comfortable, but Stanley doesn’t seem to mind. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“And next time you decide to insult some random dude’s father, please don’t.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I was defending your honour!” Richie protests, looking at him, but Stan’s eyes are fixed upon the bleeding bruise on his cheek. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">“Let me defend my honour myself, okay? Just stand there and act brave. </span> <span class="s3"><em>Mouth closed</em></span> <span class="s2">,” he adds, grabbing a new tampon and soaking it in hydrogen peroxide. He exhales deeply, the tips of his fingers brush Richie’s curls away from his face, and the following touch of his thumb and index finger on Richie’s chin is so delicate that he feels like his ribcage just grew eight times smaller in size, because there’s </span> <span class="s3"><em>absolutely no room</em>.</span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie doesn’t know what happens next, but when Stan leans in, his face mere inches away from Richie’s, and presses the cotton against Richie’s cheekbone, blowing at it instantly so he doesn’t feel a thing, Richie knows he’s the one for him. He suddenly knows why he doesn’t ever think of himself finding his soulmate — he knows he doesn’t need an other one. This boy, with Richie’s blood in the locks of dark blond hair, shining like unrefined gold; on his long pale fingers, firmly yet tenderly holding his chin; with his pink lips, curved stubbornly even when he’s asleep; with a sharp observing gaze of an eagle — almost yellow, like tree resin in the rays of dying sun, in the lights of the bathroom; this boy is for him. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Everything fails sometimes, and the Universe is no exception. Richie knows there won’t be anything on Stanley’s ivory skin if he takes away his shirt, but suddenly Richie realizes it doesn’t mean shit. Not for him, not for Stan either. There may be perfect matches out there, two same hearts in the World of thousands, or two pieces of a single one, craving the other half. But Richie doesn’t need it if it’s not Stanley’s, thumping slow and familiar in the quiet of the room. He doesn’t even need Stanley’s heart, because a heart is nothing. A heart is nothing, a heart is not everything one can offer, and although Richie doesn’t posses much, he without a doubt would throw the air in his lungs, the warmth of his blood, every single word his tongue has ever tasted, every ounce of his transparent spirit right at Stan’s feet. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He blinks, and suddenly they’re not twenty-something anymore. He see s five-years-old Stanley, his curls lighter, his cheeks chubbier, his lovely eyes more round and dark. His fingers are small and pink, shirt tucked in pants on his soft belly, and his voice, high and breathy, rings like a silver bell in the archive of Richie’s memories. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">And Richie feels the same. He’s still ready to fly at this little boy’s service, take him places, tell him words and sing him songs, feed him sweets and save all the kisses for him. Wipe away kiss tears, pull away his sad. Catch his restless palms and squeeze them tight. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stanley freezes, frowning slightly. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Does it hurt?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie blinks again. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Huh?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">His frown deepens, and Richie feels fingers gently tracing his uninjured skin.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“No, err, it’s okay,” Richie chuckles, automatically leaning into the touch. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan keeps looking at him with concern, thumb resting on his cheekbone, index finger under his earlobe; the rest are drawing lazy patterns into the skin of his neck. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I’m sorry if I hurt you.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“No,” Richie murmurs, throat aching, as if his heart’s trying to push its way out of his chest. “It’s nothing, I was just thinking.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“ ‘bout what?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Remember the day we met?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Amber-coloured irises widen up in surprise, and Richie can swear he sees the same retrospective he saw minutes earlier passing behind them, too. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Why were you alone?” he asks quietly. “You had always been out with your father before.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I don’t know.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“You don’t remember?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“No,” he shakes his head, curls bouncing slightly from the motion. “I don’t—oh wait,” he looks up, above Richie’s head, as if remembering something. “It was in May, right? And the year was a cold one, yeah, it was rainy. I think I decided to see if crows really act differently before the rain.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Crows?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“That you scared off, remember? It was an impulsive decision, I used to hate going out alone. But I felt like I needed to see if they were acting more excited than usual.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">“We met because of some crows?” Richie smiles in disbelief, although he knows they didn’t. </span> <span class="s3"><em>It was an impulsive decision</em></span> <span class="s2">, the decision that led him right into Richie’s stupid greasy arms. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I’m sure we’d still meet later,” Stan huffs out, looking back at him. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">“But we met </span> <span class="s3"><em>then</em>.</span><span class="s2">” </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan sighs, shaking his head slowly, guiding his fingers to run gently through Richie’s hair. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Sometimes I really wish to know what’s going on in that pretty head of yours,” he admits fondly, and Richie almost blurts our that he loves him. Almost. Although it wouldn’t be a confession. Stan is the smartest human being Richie knows. There’s no way it would be a surprise for him. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Nothing,” he lies instead, still smiling stupidly. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Oh, I know,” Stan lies back, with another chuckle. “Now, go the bedroom and wait for me on the bed, I’m not finished, but my bandaids are in the drawer.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He pulls away and turns the water on, throwing away all the used cottons and cleaning Richie’s blood from the white porcelain of the sink. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">It always takes him more than necessary to clean things up, to rebuild the order he needs. It’s not really about hygiene, it’s about the soap bottle’s nose facing the sink, their toothbrushes not against each other but right in front one another in the glass; about cotton pads being pressed together tight and peroxide bottle not in the bathroom but the kitchen, with the rest of their medicine. Richie takes off his clothes and puts on a fresh t-shirt. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He feels his whole body buzzing with his newest realization, but he’s not excited. He’s a perfumer who used dozens of scents every day but was just told their names. He feels it on his fingertips and the tips of his toes, filling the cells of his body with electricity, but not heatened and sparkly — it’s more like a crash of a barrier, and now fierce and savage rivers crash into the dry soils. He doesn’t know why it took him so long, he feels like a fool, but he’s used to this feeling, at least to this one. When Stanley walks into the room and once again leans above Richie’s face to place a bandaid a little below his cheekbone, Richie grabs him by the waist and tugs him on the bed, earning himself a gasp. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Am I now pretty enough?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“For what?” Stan wonders, not even attempting to fight. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“For you to fuck me, of course?” Richie answers, without missing a beat, and Stan lets out a vivid laugh instead of the surely intended snort. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“What makes you think I want to fuck you,” he asks again, looking up at Richie, as he straddles the laying boy’s hips. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Thought battle wounds turn people on.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“And that is exactly why I covered them,” Stan rolls his eyes fondly, hands lazily slipping under Richie’s t-shirt to squeeze his love handles. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“So you covered them, because they turn you off and you don’t want to see them while—“ </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I actually have no idea what in the world about you would turn me off, you wore a purple Hawaiian shirt with naked women the first time I sucked your dick.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">“God, Stanny, you really know how to make a guy feel special,” Richie cackles, and shifts a little to lean down and meet Stan’s lips. He does feel special, actually, because if, for example, swallowing lava is hard, just making Stan not look at you like you’re a rotten piece of meat is impossible. Making him smile is something the brightest stars would wish for. Planets and Galaxies dream of befriending Stanley Uris, and completely entering his trusted circle is something only the entire Universe is capable of. The Universe, and Richie Tozier. And one of the above is really, really questionable, because Richie Tozier knows that although Stan hates a lot of things, he hates the way they are, the way they </span> <span class="s3">have to be</span> <span class="s2"> more. It’s always the two of them against the whole World, against the skies and oceans, against the fires of Supernovas and the depths of Black Holes. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan breaths into Richie’s hot mouth, already undoing his own shirt. Always so fucking classy, this one, won’t ever chill the fuck out with his pristine and thoughtful outfits. Sometimes though, in summer, Richie gets to see him in tee-shirts, he’s a fan of simple white ones, thoroughly oversized and tucked in his burnt ochre pants, or light blue jeans, or charcoal grey trousers. White fits Stanley devilishly well, his warm pale skin glowing, his pink lips and cheeks in cherry blossom, eyes and hair seem darker than usual. He won’t touch any of Richie’s t-shirts, but in winter, Stan won’t even ask before shamelessly stealing one of Richie’s second-hand ugly woolen sweaters from 70s or earlier. Richie never complains, because Stan’s white t-shirts often get stained with dirt or ink, no matter how hard Richie tries to wear them with care. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan lifts himself up to toss away his shirt, Richie quickly pulls off his, but the next moment a series of abrupt movements happen, and his back hits the bed, Stan’s weight now occupying Richie’s thighs. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“You got your ass kicked for me today, let me do all the work,” he says a little breathless already, a bulge in his pants growing harder each minute. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Wanna give me a show?” Richie smirks, feeling Stan’s ass starting to grind against his dick. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Any complaints?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie’s positive the sun wouldn’t shine brighter than Stan’s grin at him. The moon wouldn’t make him feel more like home than this thing Richie gets to see every day, has been since the first day he can remember. He knows he probably looks like the last dumbstruck loser, staring up at the love of his life, but he’s also kind of glad he does. Stan should know — Stan should always know how morbidly Richie worships him, see his reflection in all the hidden places of Richie’s soul. Feel his presence at the very core of Richie’s being. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">Because Richie does. God, Richie does. If anyone ever says he loves Stanley more than what he gets in return, Richie would either laugh into their face of punch them; or both. Stanley Uris doesn’t give a shit about his own life and would sell it to a homeless man for a nice piece of Belgian chocolate cake; but if Richie asks him, he’d go through one million years on the Earth without any complaints. Well, maybe he </span> <span class="s3"><em>would</em></span> <span class="s2"> complain time after time, but only because he tends to be a little bitchy sometimes. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie, who only bothered to put on his boxers, lets his greedy hands tug at the waistband of Stan’s jeans, making him swallow down a low groan, face and neck flushed. He undoes the button and unzips the fly, and Richie licks his lips, watching the boy climb off of him to get rid of the last clothing items and get the lube from the drawer. Richie watches, transfixed, the knobs on his spine, almost breaking the pale delicate skin when he leans forward, but it’s only for a moment: a heartbeat later Stan’s back to straddling his hips, yet this time, with his back facing Richie. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“</span>
  <span class="s3">
    <em>Fuck</em>
  </span>
  <span class="s2">,” Richie almost squeaks, and Stan jerks his head towards the embarrassing sound, his crooked smile curving the side of his lips Richie’s able to see. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Behave. No touching,” he says lowly, opening the bottle and straightening his spine, this perfectly elegant, long and smooth line Richie wants to follow with his tongue, pressing kisses to every single mole on Stan’s shoulder blades. They tremble slightly when he lifts himself up on his thighs, and Richie freezes completely, when Stan’s slick fingers rub slightly between his asscheeks, then, using his other hand, he spreads them a little, nails digging into the soft flesh, and although Richie bites his lower lip, a moan still leaves his mouth, when Stan’s middle finger disappears in his small pink hole. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">“Son of a bitch,” Richie groans hoarsely, trying to stay still under Stan, but it’s fucking hard, since his hips are purposely inches away from Richie’s crotch and he’s literally dying for any sort of contact. “Teasing me with that gorgeous body of yours, </span> <span class="s3"><em>fuck</em></span><span class="s2">.” </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan hisses, arching his back, and starts fucking himself onto his finger slowly, guiding it in and out with a smooth grind of his hips. The second finger follows soon, and Richie’s hard breaths are disturbed by Stan’s sweet sigh, as he throws his head back. Richie squeezes the blankets in his fists, knowing damn well that Stan hates to be interrupted, and just watches, absolutely transfixed, how leisurely Stan clenches around his fingers, how gorgeously his muscles move under his skin, how red are the nailmarks he leaves on his own plump butt, holding it for a better access. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“You look so pretty like this, Stanley,” Richie purrs, almost choking on his breath. “Getting yourself all ready for me.”</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan grunts at the praise, and with the third finger, Richie’s positive his willpower will soon abandon him. Stan’s now moaning after every sway of his hips, leaning his long neck to the right, and Richie just knows he’s on the edge, too. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“You should fucking see yourself, baby,” he says, voice properly shaking. “Always so eager, so hungry for my dick.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan groans loudly, fingers finally leaving his thoroughly stretched hole, and—fucking finally—helps Richie to take off his boxers. And right when Richie’s ready to put his hands on that amazing fucking ass, with a firm push Stan makes him fall back on the bed again. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">“I said, </span> <span class="s3"><em>behave</em>,</span><span class="s2">” he intones, voice sharp and eager at the same time, and Richie can’t help but let out yet another grunt. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Taking the same position as before, Stan slicks his fingers again, turning to stroke Richie’s dick a couple of times. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“God, yes, please, Stan, fuck, need you—“ Richie shudders at the touch, his hands ridiculously empty. “Stan, can I—“ </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“No,” he answers, holding his dick and positioning himself right above it, turning away again. “No touching.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“You will be the death of me,” Richie whispers, barely breathing, and hears Stan’s quiet chuckle, before the tip of his dick is pressed against Stan’s hole. He proceeds to violate their sheets, unable to look at this empty-handed. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie doesn’t know how, but Stan knows that he just loves watching himself enter. His hole stretches delightfully at the beginning, swallowing Richie up inch by inch, and soon Stan puts both of his hands on the small of his back to steady himself. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Baby,” Richie cries, when Stan’s asscheeks are pressed against his crotch, this warmth and tightness around him absolutely mindwrecking. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Good?” Stan pants, trying to calm down a little. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“You feel fucking amazing, Stanny, dear,” Richie rambles, not giving a shit how embarrassingly aroused he sounds. “So tight for me, taking me so well.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Fuck,” Stan grunts, lifting himself up on those strong legs, trembling and clenching, and Richie doesn’t even blink, mesmerized, at the sight of his dick coming out of his ass. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He sits again, more readjusted, and begins moving, taking every inch of Richie’s dick again and again, no halfway excuses. The fingers on his back, right where two soft dimples lie, are white as he gains in speed, the room filling up with filthy noises of skin slapping against skin. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Stan,” Richie begs, not able to keep his hands to himself anymore. “Please—“ </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Please what,” Stan presses, but his thighs are shaking, his shoulders are trembling from the effort to sit straight, and Richie knows he’s not gonna last long in this position. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Please, let me touch you,” he whispers, and as Stan nods, Richie’s hands fly up to his waist, taking him off his dick carefully and laying him down on his back.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie takes a hold of this amazing pair of thighs, guiding them up and murmuring how beautiful Stanley is, and soon his ankles are crossed behind Richie’s back as he enters Stan’s wet heat again, faster this time, their dry starving lips find one another in one smooth hungry motion. The kiss is feverish, the pounding is hard, Richie moans, barely managing to keep their mouths connected, when Stan grabs a handful of his hair and tugs, burning thighs still moving to meet Richie’s. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">And when his name escapes Stan’s lips in a quiet sob, yet both of his hands are somewhere on Richie’s body and not his dick, Richie nods into his neck, kissing it softly, and, capturing Stan’s thin wrists with one hand, pins them above their heads. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“You’re gonna come for me like that, love?” Richie murmurs, feeling Stan’s shudder at his words, their movements slowing down to long lingering circles. He licks Stan’s neck before sucking its skin between his teeth, sweaty and smooth, and hums, satisfied, when Stan turns his face to hide it against his own forearm. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">“Sure you are,” he says, having left a series of ugly lovebites below Stan’s ear, never forgetting to </span> <span class="s3"><em>move</em></span><span class="s2">. “You’re always, always so sensitive for me, yeah?” </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Yeah,” Stan echoes, frowning in pleasure, and Richie grinds into him hard, only to watch him sob delightfully. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Just like that, pretty boy,” he whispers in his temple, curls sweaty. “Fucking look at you, you were fucking made for me, so good, and delicate, and beautiful.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Richie,” Stan moans his name, squeezing his eyes shut. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“So perfect for me,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Richie,” Stan repeats hoarsely, and Richie hits again and again, impossibly close. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Come for me, Stanley.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">“Richie, I—</span> <span class="s3"><em>ah</em></span><span class="s2">!“ </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“</span>
  <span class="s3">
    <em>Let go</em>
  </span>
  <span class="s2">.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I love you.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The second this slips off Stan’s lips, Richie comes with a loud cry, buried deep inside him, foreheads resting against each other. He closes his eyes, not quite trusting the moment to be real, and licks his lips, before giving an answer, the only answer he could be giving now, tomorrow, next month, year, century, every day of his life. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I love you too, Stanley, of course I love you too, it has always been you, no one else but you—“ </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">And Stan comes, too, to Richie’s awkward messy confession, his incoherent plea, his innocent and sincere prayer he’s been repeating every night only to himself, since the day he learned what love is, and to whom his love belongs. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Richie,” Stan pants softly, cupping his face with one weak hand. “I mean it. I love you.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I know,” Richie shakes his head, covering Stan’s fingers with his. “I’ve always known. Don’t tell me you haven’t.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan blinks, big fat tears running down his temples, and smiles, and if the Earth was made of gold and the Sun was ten times brighter, they still could not compare. Not even close. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">*** </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">It feels like they won this hungry war until the next morning, when Richie opens his eyes and looks at Stan, who’s still asleep. Cherubic features won’t ever leave his face, Renaissance loveliness won’t abandon every single curve and line, sculpted with delicacy and care. Nothing bothers Richie’s eye, not the lovebites under his chin, veins on his eyelids, two moles next to his earlobe— </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Nothing but two hands and a razor above his heart. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He forgets how to breathe; Stan’s breaths are deep and calm. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">After a few moments, Richie manages to replicate the motion </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">and runs. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>yeah</p><p>by the way, if you wanna talk — my tumblr is @fingerguneds , feel free to send me a question or a message</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. wonder if you look both ways when you cross my mind</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>drugs are bad, never do them</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">39 </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie has grown to hate May. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">To be honest, he hates a lot of things now. He has this ugly bittersweet relationship with the World — for when one is in love, it is hard to convince themselves to see anything but the echo of their love in every single thing around them. Everything crawls back to their love, and it gives one life, gives one beauty and inspiration, gives a reason; yet it’s as beautiful as it is morbid, venomous, when one’s love is lost. It still gives life, and beauty, and a reason, yet so perverted, so barbed and rotted that one would rather have their heart replaced. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Sometimes Richie thinks he sees too much. When he starts to think he sees too little, he does everything to go back at his past state. He’s addicted to his misery. That is that. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">And although he could write a pamphlet on his hate for every month of the year that would fill up the largest library in the USA, May is something else. May is a celebration. May is a countdown. May is a eulogy. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">May is the month when he comes back to Derry to bury his parents, too. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">His lawyer called him to say that, because their accounts Richie had been sending money to were off. Some kind of a car accident, the Toziers being two of the three dead men. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie hung up, finished his fourth line of meth and called an Uber to drive him to LAX. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Derry hasn’t changed. Richie’s surprised to be surprised to see it, he doesn’t catch himself noticing </span>
  <span class="s3"><em>anything</em> </span>
  <span class="s2">particularly different from the last time he’s been here. More than sixteen years ago — and the same old gas station, souvenir shops, domino clubs and kiosks. Richie has to rub his eyes with his index finger and thumb to not throw up at the sight of their school, the Synagogue, and when the taxi turns to his old street, it feels like Dante’s journey would be more merciful than this.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He doesn’t go to their house, he begs himself to not to. The taxi pulls in at some hotel’s parking lot, and Richie almost sleepwalks through the whole process of checking in. He only realizes he’s sweaty, and disgusting, and so messed up when he’s at the bathroom, throwing a phenazepam into his mouth. The only thing he wants to do is to get out of here, he has no idea why he came back in the first place, he doesn’t give a flying fuck about his parents’ funeral a shit ton of people that used to ruin his childhood will be attending. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He collapses into the couch and closes his eyes. He won’t be getting any sleep until the late night even if he tries to, no matter how many tranquilizers he swallows. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Eventually, he gets better. He calms down, gets out of this ridiculous parody of a really bad trip he managed to get himself into, somehow. With familiar lack of appetite Richie professionally feeds himself a piece of toast and drinks some tea before dressing up in black. He decides he won’t even come close, just watch in the distance. It wrecks him a little, to know that he doesn’t do it for himself — he’s said his goodbyes many years ago; but for them, for the treasured memories of having them, hidden deep inside of a tainted heart; but only a little. He’s pretty sure he’s not capable of anything more. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He watches his parents’ bodies getting buried empty, not even warm heavy winds of May make him shed a tear. The grass is greener than he’s ever seen it be, and the sky looks pink, all decorated with blushing fluffy clouds, not even a speck of blue lost in between puffy lace. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He stands there, alone, twenty feet away from a big group of red-skinned and rotten-teethed seventy years old lost souls, surrounded by stone, carrying hundreds of names he hasn’t heard of, until a strong hand lays on his shoulder. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie doesn’t know why he’s not surprised to see Mike Hanlon’s faltering smile the second their eyes meet. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">***</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Bill and Eddie are in New York, thinking of adopting a second child,” Mike says, taking a sip of his beer. Richie holds his bottle in both hands, not even planning to taste it. The bar is half-empty, and Richie’s sure he saw a couple of people here at the funeral. “Sometimes Eddie comes to see his mother, but the Denbroughs moved to New York, too, so I visit them there more often. Bev...Bev told me she found her soulmate, like, two years ago. A very nice lad, a bit younger than her. They’re in London. Ben’s bad. I mean, he’s a successful architect in San Francisco and all, but he never got over Bev, never even tried to. And Stan’s in Atlanta, saving lives,” he takes another sip, looking down at the table, “and asking about you every time he visits his father.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie would pray to be shot in the head than go through this, but he doesn’t know who to pray to. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He smiles, looking at the door. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Yeah. Cool. How about you, Mikey?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie doesn’t see Mike’s face, but he hears his silence and registers the uncomfortable shift of his body with the corner of his eye. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I’m alright, myself. Married Leeyah...six years ago? Our son turns two in August. When are you leaving, again?”</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Ten pm.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Pity. Could’ve introduced you.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Next time, yeah?” Richie finally turns to look at Mike, doing his best to sound sincere. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He nods, clearly not having Richie’s shit. Richie doesn’t care, he only blames himself for agreeing to come here, for not saying his flight’s in like three hours or something. He feels like shit for thinking this, for being like this, because Mike didn’t deserve it — he used to be one of the best boys Richie had ever met, and now he’d grown into a noble and golden-hearted man; it shows. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The problem is in Richie. A piece of shit is </span>
  <span class="s3">
    <em>him</em>
  </span>
  <span class="s2">, not anyone else, and although he realizes it and knows damn well this is not okay, he still can’t change. Cannot. He’s not a person anymore, he’s long gone. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">It feels like he hasn’t felt anything for years. He saw his spirit gone, his heart flew away and left its ugly shell in his ribs, too big for something so miserable, and although his head is still present, it doesn’t know what to do. A heart without a head is a dangerous thing, yet a head without its spirit is nothing, not worth a penny. A phantom kind of pain makes Richie’s spine shudder, when Mike, getting into his car, forces Richie to write down Stan’s phone number. “Just in case,” he says, and Richie nods again, because nodding is the only thing he does these days, but when the door closes and Mike turns the key, he looks at Stan’s name, now saved in his phone, and for only a second be loses control over his face — it breaks into the ugliest, most miserable grimace, and Mike looks petrified behind the window, and Richie tries to walk away; but then he’s being pressed against a warm solid body, something he hasn’t felt for months, maybe years, and he doesn’t break — he laughs again, saying, <em>“</em></span>
  <span class="s3">
    <em>sorry Mikey, it slips out sometimes, didn’t want to bother</em>
  </span>
  <span class="s2"><em>”</em>, and Mike shakes his head again and again, holding Richie’s trembling body and saying one more time, <em>“</em></span>
  <em>
    <span class="s3">he’s just as miserable as you are</span>
    <span class="s2">.” </span>
  </em>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">And then Richie’s Uber arrives, he has to pull away, nodding, and nodding, and nodding again, all smiles that he doesn’t feel and dry lips he doesn’t know how to use. His body feels heavy in the backseat of the car, and it takes another phenazepam and two glasses of ice cold water for Richie to stop panicking. He desperately wants to stay, to miss his flight and bury himself under thick lavender-smelling covers, because he’s not tired — he’s fucking exhausted, yet a nagging feeling of someone’s presence around him doesn’t let him. Hands shaky and lips stone cold, Richie packs his shit and leaves the room, yet again finding himself under someone’s heavy stare until he’s at the airport, until he loses himself in the crowd — all chaotic noises, hurried steps and soothing mechanic voice of constant announcements around him. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Not drugged much, yet tired enough to have a peaceful zombie-like flight, Richie stares through the window. The darkness would be overwhelming, if it wasn’t for the rare shreds of clouds, dark lilac and smokey-green. They’re like frozen, unmoving guardians of the sky, letting the plane swim across the universe, yet Richie can swear he sees them looking, their gazes follow the monotonous rhythm of the vehicle. Their features are calm and collected, yet Richie knows, almost physically feels that one wrong move, one wrong thought — and it’s over for them all. He feels the weight of danger, his naked solitude in the face of these heavenly creatures, yet there is no fear in his barely beating heart. He relaxes into his seat and stares back, trying to catch a wink of a star for a good luck. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">It’s all worse when they land. His heartbeat suffocates him in yet another fucking taxi, no matter how loud the music is and how hard the air blows from an open window. It smells great, like Californian night breeze, like cooling sands of the beach and pebbly ground, yet as they go too fast for Richie to notice anything behind the window, the grotesque devours him thoroughly. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He closes his eyes and squeezed his knees in shaky fingers, and in this moment, he begins to <em>see</em>.</span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">21 </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Snow geese,” Stan announces, when they stop on the top of a hill. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">It’s not high, just a few meters above the water, and Richie can see their reflection in the crystal clear mirror of a small shallow lake, surrounded by dry rye grounds. There are thousands of birds at the shore. Snow white, with sharp black feathers, decorating the tips of their strong wings, thin and sharp, like knives. Some of them in the air, some on the ground, a massive, unstoppable cloud of loud, chaotic energy, mesmerizing and beautiful to the point of leaving one completely speechless. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“They look just like you,” Richie hears Stan’s voice again, through the overwhelming noises of the bird empire in front of them. He presses his lips together, smirking. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Just as gorgeous and—“ </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Loud, and obnoxious, and standoffish—“ </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Still gorgeous, though?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Saying this, Richie finally forces himself to look away. To look at Stan, more specifically, at his pale smiling face, fresh, and golden-crowned and...happy. Stan looks happy. Meeting the sun, the wind, the width of the area around them; the endlessness of the bluest sky Richie has ever seen; the longest fields of dry untouched rye. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Of course,” Stan nods solemnly, his bright eyes, clear like maple syrup, inspecting the birds still. “Look at their beaks. As red and huge as your no—“</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“You,” Richie gasps and pokes him in the chest, finally earning himself a look, “are,” another poke, “fucking awful.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan laughs and catches Richie’s finger with his hand, tugging it down. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Takes one to know one, Rich.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie doesn’t miss the way his eyes throw a quick, almost invisible glance at their connected hands. He blinks with an aching heart and turns back to look at down. Neither of them lets go. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“They all look totally alike,” Richie blurts out, although the sun is almost blinding and the wind is ice in his throat. Stan shifts closer to him, their shoulders now pressed against one another. “I wonder...” Richie blinks and changes his mind, refusing to voice his thought. Thinking it would be a bad idea. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“What?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Nothing,” he shakes his head, hoping Stan would let it slip. He does this every time. Hopes. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan doesn’t answer. Sometimes it’s scary how well he knows Richie. How professionally he plays him. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I wonder how they find each other,” Richie gives up with a sigh. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“What do you mean?” Stan asks, although Richie knows he doesn’t really need an explanation. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Well, you know, one day you’re like, all cool and shit, surfing with your gang of another ten random lads you just met, lookin’ for...fish or whatever, makin’ sure y’all are good, and then you see one especially...like, loud and obnoxious goose and go like dayum! I want this one, must be the love of my life,” by the middle of Richie’s random improvisation, Stan’s laughing uncontrollably, dimples deep and cheeks rosy, vivid sound of his laughter mixing up with earsplitting cries of birds’, and Richie’s grinning, too, looking right at Stan, with absolutely lovesick eyes behind thick glass lenses. “But, ya know, although the lad is special and stuff, he looks like every other goddamn bitch around you, and I don’t know, man, I think that shit’s pretty rough.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I mean, judging by my own experience,” Stan intones through another laugh, “this is quite a problem, of course, but if you’re not that bad yourself, that moron will definitely make sure you’re stuck with him till the end of your fucking life.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie thinks it’s the loudest he’s ever heard his love be, he forgets that he thinks this one hundred times a day, but it’s like jumping in front of a giant truck somewhere on an empty highway in the middle of the night, getting blinded by its raging white lights, and in the ears is its roar, heartshaking and merciless, while the body is right there, fragile, and small, and helpless. And as if the Nature herself hears his swollen heart, what feels like billions of birds let out the last collective outcry and let themselves go into the endless width of cold November sky, making both boys flinch and turn in unison, and Stan’s hand squeezes Richie’s hand, and their eyes watch the birds go, until they’re just a constellation of small white sparkling dots in the distance, until there are tears staining their cold cheeks, because the world never felt brighter than in this moment.</span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">34</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The sound of a fist banging against the door behind which Richie’s puking his kidneys out makes him open his eyes. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He spits the remnants of already half-digested mac n cheese he ate in the evening and licks his lips, thinking he would die for a sip of water. The pill he took after closing the parlour kicked in hours ago and is the main reason of why Richie let Benny drag him to some gay club downtown. Benny is straighter than his own dick at the sight of Megan Fox in Transformers, but he considers them both “too old to go to a hetero-club, and faggots love everyone”. Plus, he only needed a drink — it was Richie who he thought should get laid. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">And now, after too many bodies pressed against him, moving in diabolical rhythm of shitty techno music, sweaty and sticky, and basically suffocating him, drugged and disoriented, he’s almost sprawled on the dirty floor of neon-illuminated bathroom. The worst thing is — he feels himself sobering up, and if you’re on the floor in a club bathroom throwing up while not really sober — it’s no big deal at all. And when you’re sober, the weight of your own misery crushes you with no mercy. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie’s too weak to deal with it all the time, to face his empty self in the mirror every day. To carry his love that doesn’t get to be love anymore, through the hours, weeks and years alone. To remember everything he used to have and knowing they are and will always be memories. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Drugs make it easier. They blur the lines between the past and the present, they fuck up the reality, and if Richie’s lucky, he can even hear Stan’s name in the kitchen, asking him to watch the kettle while he’s in the shower. If Richie’s lucky, his pillow takes deep familiar breaths, and warms him up with its body heat, and tickles the tip of his nose with soft bouncy curls. If Richie’s lucky, if he squeezes his eyes wide shut, he can physically feel the tender ghost of lips on his skin and the mellow laughter in his ears, that fills all the tunnels of his brain, that flows down every single vein and capillary. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">If he’s lucky, the lack of Stan won’t hurt that much, because it’s just a far outcry somewhere in the suburbs of his mind. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">And if he’s not, he’ll just put another acid under his tongue and close his eyes. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Having wiped his face, Richie emerges from the bathroom. He quickly finds the bar and asks for a glass of water, and although he has no intention to go through another minute of his pathetic fucking life, with every gulp of cold liquid, consciousness comes back to Richie. He drinks another glass and shakes his head when some guy offers to replace it with a gin tonic. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Too old for that shit, babe,” he says with a grin he doesn’t really mean and starts making his way out of this place, at least for a cigarette, until he’s well enough to decide if Benny’s worth conversing with. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Outside, Richie finds a wall to lean against, lighting up a fag. He breaths out into soft autumn air, staining the black of the sky with a cloud of smoke. Drag by drag he finishes it, listening to the monotonous beat of music behind the door, and when he decides to smoke another one and come back for Benny, someone’s hand holds a pack of mints in front of him. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie blinks and looks up. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He’s cute. He’s everything Richie hasn’t fucked in years — he’s not dark haired, tattooed and pierced guys and girls in black ripped clothes and intoxicated smiles, rough voices and dirt under fingernails. His curls are autumn leaves in twilight, his smile is daisies in dark grass. It’s a red sign, an absolute </span>
  <span class="s3">no</span>
  <span class="s2">.</span>
  <span class="s3"> <em>It’s too much</em>. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Tryna get me fucked up, princess?” Richie snorts, taking one and throwing it in his mouth. “I’m grateful.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Just Ice Breakers,” the guy shrugs, smile shifting into a smirk. “Heard you throwing up, figured you’d need ‘em.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Been stalking me?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Perhaps. You mind?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">His eyes are jet-black, and Richie doubts it’s because the sky is, too. Richie feels like throwing up again. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I’ll have what you had, and you can do whatever you wanna,” he hears himself saying, and when the boy’s gaze turns darker, more predatory and heavy on Richie, he knows there’s no way he’s backing off. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Soon enough, there’s another pill on Richie’s tongue, an unfamiliar hand leading him to the dancefloor, to the car, to the bedroom, like in a Stanley Kubrick film. There are lips on his lips, soft curls in his fingers, curses, pressed against his throat. A tongue taking him apart, the weight of a body above him, nice cologne and a faint smell of sweat in his nostrils. Chaotic rhythm of thrusts, filthy noises in the darkness of the room, a cacophony of voices, pleading and breaking. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">And when Richie comes, just in time to see the lavender softness of the morning skies behind a veil of pleasure tears, he bites his lower lip until it bleeds, to hold himself back from screaming out Stan’s name. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. didn’t i do it for you</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hey lads sorry for the delay hope you enjoy this chapter stay safe and take care</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p2">39</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <em> <span class="s3">He’s just as miserable as you are. </span> </em>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">It’s been a month since his trip to Derry, and every day, Mike Hanlon’s voice in his head only gets louder, more everlasting, like a song, like a plague, like a prayer. </span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie doesn’t know how to hide. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">It’s in his dreams, in his trips, in his body and bones. Richie wants to grab forceps and pull it out, like a splinter from a rotting wound, but the tip is too deep to reach it and the pain grows more and more insufferable every day. Years of forcing himself to believe that there is one smallest chance that Stan hates him, wants nothing to do with him, would rather forget about his existence that let Richie’s name slip off his lips — they were pointless. Richie left him a miserable wretch, he hurt him like he didn’t even hurt himself, and it doesn’t just make Richie sick. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He loathes himself for this so much he realizes he hasn’t been sober for almost a month only when it’s a week until Stan’s thirty ninth birthday. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">It hits Richie when there’s a songbird’s wing under his needle on some girl’s hipbone. The songbird is in a cage, the cage is covered in roses and thorns. He hesitates only for a second, blinking off the side effect of mephedrone, yet his fingers don’t even flinch. He’s been under much worse circumstances and kept doing his job well, and even if he suddenly wants nothing but to curl into a ball on the floor, for the air in his lungs is suddenly aluminum, the line under his needle is clean and sexy; it always is. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">It is now and it is an hour later, when a teenager skater boy with noodle-hair lies in front of Richie for a bouquet of baroque nature morte above his heart. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie doesn’t ask, but the kid’s nervous and keeps talking and asking things, and Richie is not a bad person — even without a person in him, he’s an alright kind of a dude, so he answers the boy patiently and asks only once if it hurts much. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Yes,” he says, “but my soulmate tatt makes the person I love sad, so I would rather get through this once for them to see flowers.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie is already weak enough to keep his face straight. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“What? What’s wrong?” the boy asks, alarmed, and Richie shakes his head, swallowing a giant lump in his throat. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Nothing. You’re the first person I hear to be hiding the mate tatt because it hurts someone, that’s all. Relax, it’ll hurt less.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">In five seconds they are silent, Richie’s goes almost nuts. But then the boy speaks again. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“My tattoo is not a pleasant one.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“And theirs?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“It’s okay. Not very bright, too, but he thinks mine’s worse.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The monotonous buzzing of Richie’s needle is again the only thing that breaks the silence. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“He loves flowers,” the boy says, squeezing his eyes and throwing back his head. Too sensitive, this one. “Especially in paintings. His grandma is Flemish, she has a lot of copies on her walls, he grew up around them. He says, it’s sad that they are going to die fast, being so gorgeous and vivid, but that’s the point of those paintings. Youth and life are short but beautiful, something like that. I’m not sure, he’s way more educated,” he chuckles. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He keeps talking, but Richie doesn’t hear a thing. The tip of his needle is the only thing he sees, but inside him, there blossoms a feeling rare for his heart, yet familiar. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Regret. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">They could’ve gone through this together. They would love each other till the end, till Stan’s wrists are bleeding and Richie is choking with tears, they could’ve had this life together, beautiful and bright, to the very finish line. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">They could’ve traveled the world and see every single bird Stan knows, together. Twice a year, in late autumn and mid-spring. They could’ve had a wedding. Or maybe not, maybe they both wouldn’t have needed it, in the end. Kids? Probably, they could’ve had kids. Adopted or whatever. A dog. Richie has always wanted a dog, Stan said they would buy one as soon as he finished his degree. They could’ve hung pictures on their walls, like Schiele’s, who’s their favourite, and taken polaroids of each other with that camera Stan gave Richie one hundred years ago. They could’ve danced in their sitting room, fed each other tons of food, fucked the soul out of one another. Could’ve kissed. Every second of every day. Could’ve laughed together and sobbed, too. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">And this <em>could</em> is too realistic to shrug it off easily. If Richie could paint, he’d illustrate every single scenario to the point of the smallest details, he knows what he could’ve had too well, he’s loved Stan for too long before letting go. He still does. Even if he tells himself he can’t love anymore, he does. If he didn’t, he’d shoot himself in the head, he wouldn’t have treasured the memories of them together, enough to make them a reason to live. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">If Mike didn’t say this, Richie thinks after closing the parlour and sitting down on one of the couches, he’d think his plan had worked. That he managed once again to change the tattoos on their chests, that Stan’s no longer doomed to be the death of himself, that he loves a nice Jewish girl, and had kids with her, and doesn’t know what a Tozier is anymore. That he he saved Stan, because </span> <span class="s3"> <em>loving Richie would only make him slit his fucking wrists. </em> </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">But he’s thirty nine in a week. And he’s just as miserable as Richie is, lonely, yearning and craving. And while some sixteen years olds doing everything to prevent their loved one’s hurting, he, with own two hands, took his morning star’s sunshine away. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">***</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Above everything else, Richie likes LSD.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He manages to take it seldom in order to keep the effect on point, and there’s no craving for it, as there is for meth at the end of the day. It fucks up the vision in the best way possible, it’s a fucking happy tab, and Richie’s too old for a bad trip. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He takes one as soon as he gets home, hyped up on music in earphones that was way too loud as he chainsmoked in front of his house. Throwing himself in the familiar comfort of the couch he bought from a turkish girl seven years ago, he opens a can of cherry soda and turns on the TV. Cooking shows are the best background for an acid trip, it’s that well-known thing that holds him on the ground; they’ve been playing the role of Richie’s trip sitter since the moment he realized he can’t see Stan when there’s anyone else beside him. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan always comes when he’s alone. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">He’s not a hallucination. LSD makes Richie think of things he can’t think of in any other condition; see things he doesn’t want to see. Opening the wrath of the world he really created, Richie </span> <span class="s3"><em>himself</em> </span> <span class="s2">did, without any influence of the reality. It’s like a trip in the kingdom of his head, where his heart is the sound and the colours are his emotions. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">He never sees Stan or hears him; yet he feels him in the most sacred way, he feels his hands wrapped around his heart, </span> <span class="s3"> <em>physically</em> </span> <span class="s2"> feels it. Richie feels his presence, he feels that the air becomes him, </span> <span class="s3"> <em>he</em> </span> <span class="s2"> becomes him. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">And it’s the same today, it’s a purple haze of Richie’s reflection in the open window; and yet something’s off. Or rather, not off but different. A crippling feeling of anxiety somewhere in the back of his head, licking a wet path up his spine. Holding out a finger and writing on his skin so it’s uncomfortably tight for him, or, on the other hand, too large to fit in. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">It’s like a sign, a push towards the missing piece.</span> <span class="s3"> <em>Missing piece? Which one? How is he supposed to find it? </em></span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s3"> <em>His apartment’s a mess. Too many things, although Mrs Stonewater visited two days ago to wipe away the dust off his furniture and iron his clothes. Maybe Mrs Stonewater hasn’t left yet? </em> </span>
</p><p class="p2">
  
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s3"> <em>God, it feels like ages ago. She’s probably sick, she couldn’t have come two days ago. Too much time has passed. </em> </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie feels his heart beating too loud. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s3"><em>Fuck, it’s anxiety.</em> </span> <span class="s2">No anxiety, no tension, no bad endings</span> <span class="s3">. <em>Not today, just watch the show. Watch the fucking show, put the sound on. Focus on the show, it’s gonna be alright. It’s not a bad trip, you’re just too tired. </em></span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s3"> <em>Too tired? Of what? </em> </span>
</p><p class="p2">
  
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s3"> <em>You’re tired of missing Stan. Why are you missing him? Shouldn’t he be here, with you? He couldn’t have missed this, he always comes when you’re alone. </em> </span>
</p><p class="p2">
  
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s3"> <em>Maybe he forgot. Or late. He’s just late! Just call him, ask him where he is. Maybe he’s hungry, wouldn’t he be happy to eat? You’re hungry, too, you haven’t eaten properly in fifteen years. </em> </span>
</p><p class="p2">
  
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s3"> <em>Don’t worry, he’s just late. It’s not a big deal, people get late all the time, if he hasn’t called he’s probably somewhere near—</em> </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“ ‘lo?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Stan?” Richie shifts, closing his eyes, lips dry. “Hey, where—“ </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Richie?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie smiles, like always does at the sound of Stan’s voice. Especially when it’s his name, rolling off his sweet little tongue. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Yeah, are you alright? You’re late a little, I was just worried—“ </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“What?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">There are sounds in the background, mixing up with Stan’s suddenly heavy breath. Richie frowns. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Rich, fuck, Richie, are you there?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Stan?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Richie, fuck, are you—God, Richie,” there’s absolutely coherent panic in Stanley’s voice now, and Richie’s heard him crying too many times to mistake this sound with any other emotion of his. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Stan, are you crying?” he asks silently, licking his lips. “Please don’t cry.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Richie, oh my God,” Stan’s definitely crying now, and Richie straightens up in his seat, everything suddenly chaotic and shaking around him. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Stan, please, please don’t cry,” he says softly, trying to reach out for Stan through the cellphone. “I love you so much, Stanley.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Richie,” he repeats his name again, and a dead grip squeezes Richie’s organs. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I love you. I love you, I love you, I loveyou, Iloveyou, iloveyouiloveyouilove you,” Richie whispers in a prayer, because <em>this</em> is how he prays; until a part of his head begins to realize that it’s not in his head. That’s it’s fucking real. It is the now-now. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Richie, fuck, what did you take? Where—where are you, Richie? God fucking dammit, please don’t hang up, just talk to me, okay? Rich—“ </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I miss you so much, Stan,” Richie shakes his head, closing his eyes. “I’m so sorry.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“No! No you’re not! No you’re not, don’t say this, Richie please, for fuck’s sake, don’t— “ </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie pushes the red button, body shaking in silent hysteria. Hating oneselfunder LSD is a risky business, and Richie now has a maraschino cherrie for his pie from Hell.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He opens his bloodshot eyes, stands up, walks towards his room and opens the drawer, finding easily a small zip-lock, thoroughly filled with slightly yellow powder.</span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">***</span>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">11 </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“My dad’s got a watch. And my mom has a heart attack,” Stan says, looking at two swans in the middle of the pond. His shoulders have finally stopped shaking, now wrapped in Richie’s sweater. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“What does a watch mean?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Time.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Time?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan shifts, bending his knees and pressing his chest against his thighs. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Dad said it means that you’ll die peacefully. Get old and stuff.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie looks at the clear surface of the pond, mirroring the blue sky and dark leaves above them. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I think it’s the best you can get.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Yeah,” Stan shrugs, although his gaze is twisted. “I think so too.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Also a perfect idea for a matching tattoo,” Richie blurts out,out of his kind of coping-with-Stan-upsetting-himself-mechanism he didn’t know he had. “Would you get one with me?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">It works, though. Stan purses his lips first, huffing, then barks out a laugh, scrunching his nose. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Only if yours would be Cogsworth.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Deal!” Richie exclaims immediately, holding out a hand for Stan to shake. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He rolls his eyes with a grin and gives him the finger instead. </span>
</p><p class="p3">
  
</p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">***</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">39 </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The taste in Richie’s mouth alone makes him wish he was dead. He frowns, and it hurts even more, because, like a pack of wolves spotting a movement between naked trees, needles of pain react immediately to his further awakening. The pain is in his head — and the body he doesn’t feel at all. He knows he owns it, but there’s nothing he can do — it’s like having hair on top of your head. You can’t move it, unless your name is Medusa. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie pants. There are dry tears, clinging to his eyelashes in smallest pebbles, and he wishes he could wipe his eyes or wash his face. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The room is cool, although it feels like afternoon to Richie. The walls are blue, cold blue, with what looks like minimalistic architectural sketches in white frames. Slightly grey tulle is cascading in front of the window, so the light is hazy white. Yet bright. That’s why it feels like afternoon. Or the middle of a morning. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">A little below his pain there stands hunger. Richie thinks he has never felt this empty in the stomach, it even hurts under his right rib, and he’s positive the headache is also connected with his absolute starvation. He’s also cold a little bit, the cloth he’s wearing too opened in the chest. Probably for a better access to his heart. So, a clinic. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The heart starts beating faster, anxious and overwhelmed, and the pain grows to be almost insufferable. Richie hears himself releasing a quiet hiccup and closes his eyes, attempting to move his hands. They obey reluctantly, as if an engine for the first time in years. Suddenly Richie wonders if it is what waking up after death is — if it’s Dante’s infamous Purgatory, well, maybe not Dante’s, and...yet. The thought of dying and waking up again to wait for his sentence even amuses him a little: Richie snorts, still half-convinced that he’s dead. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">It wouldn’t be a surprise, after all. The sparkle of joy in his eyes vanishes completely the second the last memories before his blackout start waltzing in front of Richie’s eyes, mocking and savage. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">And the moment he tries to remember what happened after snorting a shit ton of methadone right in the middle of a bad trip, he hears steps behind the door, and then it opens. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie thinks he’s really, really dead when he sees Stan. There’s no way he could’ve gone through seeing him again and staying alive. There’s no way Richie’s heart wouldn’t explode the instant that he saw this man in front of him one more time. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">But when he really </span> <span class="s3">sees</span> <span class="s2"> Stanley, everything ends up falling apart immediately. There’s no way Stanley would look this dead after dying. There’s no way his <em>darling boy</em> would collect every misery of this world in every speck of gold in his big brown eyes after closing them forever. There’s no way, that after dying, the heaviness of Stan’s stare would feel like it could send him to grave again, one more time, within a second; a moment.  </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie breathes out, and Stan breaths in. He turns, gaze unblinking, to look behind his shoulder, and turns back, closing the door and hesitating only for a moment before taking a step in Richie’s direction, his grip around the glass of water almost strong enough to crack it. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie only needs this much that he still doesn’t see well without glasses, because everything inside him falls when he sees Stan a little more clear.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He looks fucking terrible. It’s not his features, still heavenly pretty in his adolescence; it’s the exhaustion that has stained it thoroughly and mercilessly. He looks like a clockwork statue of wax, sculpted by gods.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie watches quietly, as Stan grits his teeth and keeps walking, stopping right next to Richie’s bed. He leans down a little, and when Richie feels a warm tender hand on the back of his head, carefully holding it in order to help him make a sip of water...he has no idea what keeps him alive right now. He wants to cry, to shout, to run away and strangle himself; but the only thing Richie actually does is swallowing the water sip by sip, not quite realizing how much he needed it. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He almost whines when his head is placed back on the pillow. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">And when Stan sits down in the chair next to him, Richie is again imprisoned by the look of the prettiest, yet deadliest eyes in the world. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan doesn’t look at him for long, though. His gaze slips down to be stuck on something just below Richie’s chin, and it doesn’t take one to be a genius to know what makes him squeeze his eyes, almost instantly. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie doesn’t know what to do, when Stan looks at him again. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“What is it?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">A shudder runs down his whole body, when he realizes the voice is his own. Stanley doesn’t miss a beat. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Overdose.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Wow.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The chuckle Stan lets out is the most bitter thing Richie’s ever heard. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“What about me? You saw, didn’t you?” he asks, and there is something cruel in his eyes; and something desperately tainted in the press of his voice. “The day you left?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">A long minute passes before Richie manages to collect the courage to give an answer. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Suicide.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Surprisingly enough, Stan rolls his eyes and leans back into the chair, eyes never leaving Richie’s this time. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Quite a match, aren’t we.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie swallows. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“One hundred percent compatible.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The silence alone makes Richie press his lips together in attempt to stop himself from a breakdown. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Weren’t you supposed to stay with me forever in order to save me from my own self?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie shrugs, eyes full of tears. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Thought it would change.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Just how—“ </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Because it’s me, alright?” he cries out with a hiccup. “It’s wrong to wake up one day, when you...shit. Shit, you were meant for someone else, for a completely different life, with a completely different tattoo—”</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Richie—“</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“You can’t deny that loving me would only make you slit your fucking wrists, Stan!” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stanley’s lips fall apart. Richie’s trembling with anger and despair. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“It’s engraved on your fucking skin,” he whispers, shaking his head. “I thought it would change again if I leave you alone. You are doomed because of <em>me</em>,” his voice barely above a whisper. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan stares, chest rising and falling, as if he’s just run a marathon. When he speaks again, it’s thunder in silent skies. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I would rather slit my wrists than live my life with anyone who’s not you.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">It’s Richie’s turn to be left breathless. He shakes his head and lick his lips, still resisting this numb feeling in his throat. Always resisting, for there is nothing else he can do.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I—I’m a drug addict.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I know.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Stan, I’ll overdose. I’m fucked. Like, properly.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I don’t care. We’ll work it out.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“You told me you loved me and I left.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stanley chuckles, and Richie cannot believe what he hears next. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Well, that shit hurt, but I’m kind of flattered that you’re ready to rip your heart into pieces and fuck your life up in order to keep me safe, so. I’ll get over it.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">Richie refuses to stop crying stubbornly, even when the room lights up with sunlightthrough the gap between the curtains. Like melted butter, it lays on furniture, on Richie’s hands, on Stan’s dark green sweater and his face, pointing out the wrinkles on his forehead, below his cheekbones, where the dimples usually appear when he smiles; two dark bags under his eyes and crow’s feet, framing the lovely brown that is now lighter due to the interruption of the July sun. And in those eyes, in every single word that escaped through his pale pink lips, in every touch of firm hands is so much </span> <span class="s3">love</span> <span class="s2">, that Richie’s exhausted spirit can not resist acknowledging anymore. It’s stronger than him, would’ve knocked off his feet if he had been standing right after the door swung open; and his heart is nagging, writhing and squirming, demanding to fly right back into Stanley’s hands. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“How did you find me?” he tries, for the last time, feeling like he owes himself this one. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“You told me your address.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I don’t remember it.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“You were fucked up.”</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“And you’re supposed to be the smart one,” Richie murmurs in the end, looking down. “You should’ve moved on.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Do you really think I could’ve forgotten you? And love somebody else?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Yes.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">“Richie,” Stan says his name like it is the most beautiful and delicate thing on the Earth, then leans a little forward, leaving Richie absolutely stunned with the look in his sour brown eyes. ”If only you knew how much I love you,” Richie freezes, finding it hard to breathe, “you wouldn’t even </span> <span class="s3"> <em>dare</em> </span> <span class="s2"> to </span> <span class="s3"> <em>ever</em> </span> <span class="s2"> let go of my hand.” </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">***</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Still feeling a little weak from plasmapheresis, Richie emerges from the clinic two days after waking up. Mostly due to Stan, he was safely discharged and thoroughly cleaned and patched up, and although walking out of glass doors into the unknown scares the shit out of him, he’s feeling much, much better. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">His nervous breakdown was on the first night, when he almost ran away again. Fifteen years of misery don’t just leave, unnoticed, and yet...and yet, Stan spent every single second beside his bed, giving orders, crying on occasion and sneaking him coca-cola, and Richie gave in. Stan’s words are now his heartbeat, the words he said that first day, and what kind of man Richie is to abandon him after this. What kind of man he would be to love like this. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He still promises himself to run away. Later, just a little bit later, he will. He has to. But now he’s too exhausted to continue; he needs to catch his breath. And Stan knows exactly what he’s thinking, he knows what to expect; so not now. One day, for sure. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">It’s warm and humid outside, after cool walls of the clinic. The sky is all pinks and peaches, the air completely silent. Only distant echoes of wind and engines disturb this Californian kind of atmosphere. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He spots Stan instantly, leaning against Richie’s car, staring at his phone. His brows are furrowed slightly, but his lips are relaxed. Like twenty years ago, Stan’s lips is the loudest thing in his face.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He’s grown up to be an extremely handsome man. His curls are only slightly darker than before, with visible whites here and there, bouncy and tight on the top of his head and curling down in soft-looking locks on his forehead. His nose is thinner, his cheekbones are soft-edged. His pointy chin is a little more square. Slender and lean, he’s still almost as tall as Richie is, his shoulders and hips not that wide, legs for days and fingers just as long. One would call him unhealthily-looking, especially with his heavy eyelids and deeply planted eyes, with too many wrinkles on his face and really skinny frame, but still...gorgeous. Even better than in Richie’s most desperate dreams. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">And when he looks up, disturbed with the sound of the closing door, Richie’s almost sheepish to come any closer; and it is, of course, until Stan smiles at him, with a genuine, exhausted, wonderful smile that would make Rome collapse in ruins one thousand times. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s2">He straightens up, putting his phone away, and Richie swallows hard, continuing to walk and hesitating only two meters away from Stan, unconsciously. Stan doesn’t frown or say anything; he just waits, waits until Richie’s ready, ready to take these two final steps to press his body against Stan’s, wrapping those shaking hands around him and finally, </span> <span class="s3"> <em>finally</em> </span> <span class="s2"> burying his face in the familiar crook of the neck, releasing a breath that has been held for fifteen years. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">They stand there for ages, inhaling each other’s presence and literally floating with that silent kind of happiness only two hearts of the same sort reach the moment they come together completely. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. i’ve seen the sky just begin to fall</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>the stozier we deserve</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">40 </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Is it one year without drugs or one year since my overdose?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan looks up at him, face absolutely blank. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Both.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie’s lips curl into a fond smile. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“No, I mean, is it a nice day or a bad day? Are we celebrating or mour—“</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Both.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie bites his lower lip, proceeding to watch Stan writing something in his schedules. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“So it’s a normal day.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan stops writing, still looking down. Then he lets down a loud sigh. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Every day is just a day.”</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“So no present for your birthday?” Richie purrs with a lopsided grin, still looking at Stan with a ridiculous amount of love. Is a special day for both of them, but he thinks Stan values it more. Stan is always more. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“You are so,” he finally looks up at Richie, throwing away his pen, “fucking annoying.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“What did I do?” he laughs shit-eatingly, like a provocative moron he is. “I just wanted to know if—“</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Bittersweet, let’s call it bittersweet,” Stan shakes his head, and Richie stands up, triumphantly, to go to the kitchen. “Just remember that I’m proud of you every day.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie turns to see Stan back to his planning again with slightly pinker cheeks. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">As if they’re sixteen again. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">It’s true, he is proud of Richie every day — smiling at him sleepily in the morning when he ruffles Stan’s hair, coming to pick him up from the parlour when he’s not at surgery or calling Richie to say he’ll be late; kissing him goodnight before embracing him from the behind, his deep rhythmic breathing lulling Richie into sleep. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He was the reason Richie started it and he was the reason Richie stopped. As easy as pie. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie learned to be stronger than his body. Provocative, feverish impulses of craving turned out to be rather hard to ignore, since he lives in a body so used to certain things, but his mind has always been a fierce one — mostly due to Stan. It’s a cliche, it’s a too-known path for a lot of people, but love is the worst and love is and always has been the best thing that happened to him, and love kept him safe just like it did ruin him completely — thoroughly and completely. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">It still hurts sometimes — when they’re naked in front of each other, when Richie’s leaving kisses on Stan’s neck and his eyes slip down to see this ugly reminder of his rotten presence in Stan’s life; but then he kisses it, too, he kisses it like Stan kisses him — earnestly, tenderly and innocently, and every kiss is a promise, every kiss heals yet another broken piece of him, and Richie knows it’s worth one thousand side effects of cocaine. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Sometimes he still promises himself to run away, and he’s good at keeping promises, he’s always been; unless it’s the ones he made for himself. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">But right now, the only promise in Richie’s head is the one they almost-ish made when they were kids: Richie still bothers the shit out of Stan to make him get matching clock tattoos just for the fun of it. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><em><span class="s3">I’ve never promised you this, asshole </span></em> <span class="s2">is what he usually gets, but Richie’s a strong believer in dedication. And that one day Stan’s gonna give up. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He turns back and walks to press himself against the back of Stanley’s chair, threading his fingers through the soft curls. Sometimes Richie catches a low glimmer of silver in dark rich rye-coloured locks; but it suits Stan, just like the wrinkles on his cheeks where usually the dimples lay when he smiles; the blue veins on his eyelids; the paleness of his lips and the low vividness of his hazel irises. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan’s always perfect. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Hungry?” Richie murmurs, melting like sugar when he leans back into his touch. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“A bit. You?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Me too. What d’ya want?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Dunno. Crepes? Or waffles?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie frowns slightly, trying to remember if they have any berries. Stan’s hair is silk under his touch, flowing between his fingers. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Blackberry crepes or blackberry waffles?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Waffles,” Stan nods with a smile in his voice. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie plants a kiss to the top of Stan’s head and returns to the kitchen. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2">***</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">13 </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“What if my death’s awful?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">When Bev says this, Richie’s eyes instantly fly up to look at Stan’s face. It’s paler than it was, yet his stubborn eyes are still glued into the distance of the road they’re biking on. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“What ih-if it is?” Bill asks, uncertainly. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Right in front of them, the sky is dark with heavy grey and blue clouds. It’s a thick line just above the horizon, glaring at them warningly, but it’s too far to be alarming: above them and behind, the sky is clear, baby-blue, like Bill’s eyes when the sun hits them, or Stan’s shirt with short sleeves. The fields of young hay accompany them on either side of the empty road, old asphalt all cracked up and bruised. Their shadows are long, running before them in distorted silhouettes. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Can I change it?” Bev asks again, her red hair almost burning, just like the freckles on her nose, and cheeks, and lips. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I think it’s not impossible,” Ben says with a weak voice of his, “but—“ </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“The Universe foresees rebels,” it’s Mike who’s talking now. “Intentionally avoiding the way you’re going to die is written in our future.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie hears the wind in his hair and the wheels of their bicycles on the ground. With his eyes, he follows one especially thick and long crack below them. The top of his head is hot and so are his shoulders. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Does that mean I shouldn’t try?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Ben and Bill shrug in unison. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“They say God knows best,” Eddie intones. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“So wanting to change our future is a sin? And so is praying for it to be different?” Richie hears Stan’s voice, and a shudder suddenly runs down his spine. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Well, at some point—“ </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“And what if it’s suicide?” Eddie blurts out Richie’s thought. He tries his best to not look at Stan as something heavy lays right on his chest. “Why would God want this for anyone?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I don’t think wants it, Eddie,” Mike says softly. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Than why is suicide an option?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie grimaces after hearing his own voice. He barely notices that the seven of them gain speed, as if it will help to find the answers on their stupid puppy questions. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I don’t know,” Mike says at last, and Richie throws a quick glance at his tenderly sad face. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“This world sucks,” Beverly announces, as Stan keeps pushing the pedals, face absolutely unreadable. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2">***</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">46 </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">They’re really far from the city. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Neither Stan, nor Richie are in favour of weddings, and it is yet another one they find themselves at, some friend of Stanley’s marrying the love of her life just one year before her fiftieth birthday. It’s in her huge summer house, a perfect quote of Le Corbusier’s famous villa — all white, with giant ridiculously fitting windows, an open roof and weird stairs in the middle of the construction; and yet the most wonderful part is its garden that looks endless due to the forest that follows after. At nine pm, Stan tugs at Richie’s sleeve, pointing slightly at the back door, and in a minute they’re out of the noise of at least fifty “close friends” of the lady’s. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">July is a heavy month, but in the evening it grants them with cool sweet air, filled with all the possible riches of flower masquerade. They follow a sandy path hand in hand, listening to their own steps, accompanied with the cacophony of nighttime bugs and toads, and getting drunk on this air — it feels like the gardens of Eden begin to blossom right in their lungs. It only smell like this before the rain, the Earth showing off its most precious gifts in exchange for a healing shower after a hot summer day. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">After ten minutes of walking they finally reach a small rotunda of steel, painted white. It’s a place right out of Oskar Wilde’s stories: in the middle of a small rose garden, decorated with curves and swirls, with five comfortable-looking wooden seats and a little table in the middle. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">As they walk towards it, Stan touches the roses on either side of the path with the tips of his fingers, big fat buds nodding at them smoothly as they pass them. Sand under their feet shifts in stone tiles, the sounds of their dress shoe heels harmonizes with the carnival of animals. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">They sit, and Richie lights up a cigarette, Stan’s arm tucked under his arm, their bodies pressed against one another. After two exhales, Richie offers the cigarette to Stan, and he accepts it, taking a drag and breathing out into the dark cloudless sky. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">They finish it, and Stan lights up another one. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“See those six stars?” he points to the sky with his chin, and Richie looks up as well. “Three pairs of twins?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Uh-huh, I think I do?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“It’s the Gemini constellation. Well, actually there are more than six stars, but I can’t see the rest.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Do you see any other constellations?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan bites his lower lip, frowning a little. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Yeah, look, that’s Orion. The three stars very close to each other, yeah? It’s his belt. The Three Kings,” he adds, the corners of his lips curving up. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Their faces are almost drowning in the darkness, the brightest thing is the burning tip of their cigarette. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">When they finish it too, Richie licks his lips and puts his head on Stan’s shoulder, looking at three unblinking stars in front of them. Soon enough, Stanley presses the side of his head against Richie’s in their most familiar position these days. These years. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie feels his body relaxing, eyelids turning heavier with every minute. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Stan?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Mm?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Have you ever thought of killing yourself?”</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan’s heart doesn’t change its serene rhythm under Richie’s ear and his thumb doesn’t hesitate to brush against Richie’s hand. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I have.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“When?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“When we were teenagers. When I realized I was in love with you.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie tries to remember the day <em>he</em> did, but fails. It feels like he’s always been in love with Stan. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“And...and when we were apart?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Then, too. But less.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Why less?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I think I’ve always known you’d come back.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">A stronger blow of wind makes the rosebuds around them swing back and forth quickly. It feels like they’re too heavy for their thin stems. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I think I knew that, too.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie feels Stan’s chest shake with a tender laugh. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“We’ve always been inevitable for each other, Richie. That’s why we’re still alive.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">It’s true. If it wasn’t for this feeling that he’d come back home, fall back into Stan’s arms, no matter how stubborn he is, how resistant he tried to be, he’d be long gone. There is hope he didn’t know he felt, hope that has always been a transparent halo above Richie’s head he didn’t know he carried; and it’s still there, and he still doesn’t know he has it. Later, he will. But not yet. People tend to hope for the best even in the bottom of their misery, it’s in their core, in their blood, in the middle of their bones. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Who do you think will die first?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan chuckles. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“No idea. I think it’s gonna be you, because there is literally nothing else I can think of to make me do this to myself; but on the other hand, you look happy enough, so it might be me, and then you’ll be back to your bullshit and die, eventually.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie can’t help but laugh at this wholeheartedly. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“If you die first, there’s no way I’m not killing myself, you know.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“You know perfectly well how much it takes to overdose. You’re too scared of pain to do anything else,” his voice sounds teasing above Richie’s ear. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Right, but you love me too much to leave like this, so...I don’t know.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Fuck,” Stan’s fully laughing now, and Richie echoes his laughter into the night. “Guess all we can do is wait and see.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Wanna bet?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“On who’s dying first?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Uh-huh.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Alright. Who’s your bet on?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie sucks his lower lip between his teeth. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Shit.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Exactly,” Stan nods, probably smirking. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Alright-alright, I’m betting it’s gonna be you.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Go fuck yourself Richie, my bet’s on you, too.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Fuck me yourself, asshole!” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Cliché!” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“A classic,” Richie argues, straightening up. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan shakes his head in disbelief, a fond smile playing on his lips. Richie squeezes his hand and grins.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">***</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">The next day, Richie wakes up an hour before afternoon, with a heart lighter than the Sun, currently terrorizing their bedroom. It’s one of those rare days when his evening mood still goes strong after waking up, and, smiling at the sight of a curly head, buried in pillows and blankets, Richie untangles his limbs carefully from Stan’s body and stands up. He quietly pulls the curtains together and walks out of the room, closing the door shut. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">They arrived home too late for both men’s liking, sober and horny, and Richie’s quite sure he could kill someone for a meal. After having brushed his teeth, he goes to the kitchen and inspects critically all the contains of their refrigerator. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Taking a bite of a pear, Richie pulls out a couple of eggs, tomatoes and bell peppers. He has quite a collection of spices, because everything is better with spices and dried herbs, and there’s no problem with Stan’s favourite Mediterranean cuisine, for example shakshouka, at any hour of any day. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He’s finishing the tomato sauce, when Stan emerges from their room, pink-skinned, sleepy and disheveled. He looks his youngest like that, a little grumpy, but still smiling the moment he sees Richie, eyes shining and his pajamas all crumbled. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He doesn’t say a word, only walks towards the bathroom to clean up. Richie chuckles to himself and cracks five eggs into the reddish mix of spices and vegetables. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Stan’s back by the time the food is on the table and Richie’s morning cigarette is long finished. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Starvin’,” he mumbles, leaning against Richie and leaving a peck on his lips. “Love you, you’re the best.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Imagine if we both couldn’t cook for shit,” Richie grins, letting go of him to sit down. Stan plomps in his chair facing Richie and groans, running a hand through his dark golden curls. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Don’t wanna. Sounds fake.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“I think I’m spoiling you,” Richie intones thoughtfully, taking a fork in his hand. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“You better,” Stan snorts and looks up at him, licking his lips. He opens his mouth again as if to say something, but then his gaze slips down to stop on Richie’s bare chest. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Suddenly, he’s frozen. His eyes widen up and blood rushes back from his cheeks, and Richie’s smile falls immediately, face mirroring Stan’s terrified expressions. He looks down to discover nothing unusual, and he checks up again just in case, yet unsuccessfully. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Stan? Stan, what is it?” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">When their eyes meet again, Richie thinks he might throw up, because Stan has never looked more ecstatically shocked. There’s a weird glimmer to his eyes, and when Richie’s sure he’s going to have an aneurysm, Stan slowly puts his hands up and starts pulling off his shirt, blood back in his face, hot and boiling. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“What—“ </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie doesn’t have a chance to finish the sentence. On Stan’s pale chest, above his heart, there’s a tattoo Richie has never seen before. A beautiful one, as beautiful as the previous was ugly; a delicate golden pocket watch, like Mike Hanlon used to collect as a teenager, finding them in old houses and shops and repairing them in all their glory. It’s neither small nor big, just a watch with pretty latin numbers in cursive and hands equally elegant, both pointing at twelve. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie tries to swallow the lump in his throat, and by the wet look of Stan’s already red-rimmed eyes and his heartwarmingly sheepish smile, blossoming in the corners of his lips, he understands everything he needs to know. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“Please tell me we don’t need to get matching watch tattoos anymore,” Richie mutters, voice cracking somewhere in the middle, and Stan lets out a wet embarrassing cackle, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">“It’s not Cogsworth though.” </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">Richie sniggers, heart finally finding its peace. He looks into Stan’s shining hazel eyes and once again thinks that not even the brightest star is lovelier. Maybe that’s why the universe used to hate them too much. Maybe she was too jealous of their love, too jealous that not even the prettiest gems in her jewelry box could compare with the shape of them in one another’s eyes. Because Richie doubts anyone has ever loved like they do. He could bet his life anyone ever will, too. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">
  <span class="s2">He leans back into his chair, readjusts his glasses, runs his sticky fingers through his hair and gives Stan the finger. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>aite lads it’s been an amazing journey thank you so much for being with me and my boys hope you loved it and.. until next time! i’m @fingerguneds on tumblr in case you have something so say</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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